Is the show over for T H QUEEN of daytime TV?
If Ellen DeGeneres had not ended her television show by urging the 15 million viewers in America who watch her each week to “be kind to one another”, then things might well have been different. Over the course of the last 17 years, Ellen has reigned supreme as the queen of US daytime TV. The show’s mixture of anodyne celebrity interviews, feelgood guests and her amiable goofing – allied to her being the first gay woman to have come out on television and a flag-bearer for the LGBT movement – has made her one of the most popular and powerful people in the entertainment industry.
So it was a matter of more than embarrassment that in September, opening the first show in her 18th season, the “be kind lady” should have felt obliged to begin with a seven-minute monologue addressing allegations that she had presided over a “toxic” workplace, where staff were subject to harassment and abuse – and that Ellen herself was actually not very kind at all.
In an article published on the news site BuzzFeed in July, one current and 10 former staff members, speaking anonymously, alleged that the work culture at the show was one of “racism, fear and intimidation”. There were allegations that staff had been fired after taking medical leave or bereavement days to attend family funerals. One
