Ellen DeGeneres had staff on Australia's "Today" show "walking on eggshells" after her staff dictated to them who could talk to her and even who could and could not look at her when she made a guest appearance.
It's more trouble for Ellen, whose talk show is under investigation amid allegations of a "toxic work culture." In addition, many people have been coming forward to shred her congenial image with horror stories about her behavior.
Now Neil Breen, the host of 4BC "Breakfast with Neil Breen" in Australia, is sharing his own nightmarish experience with the talk show host.
Breen was the producer of the "Today" show at the time. He recalled one incident in 2013 during which DeGeneres was to make a special guest appearance.
"The producer called us aside and said, 'Now Neil, no one is to talk to Ellen. You don't talk to her, you don't approach her, you don't look at her,'" he said on Wednesday.
"'She'll come in, she'll sit down, she'll talk to Richard and then Ellen will leave," Breen continued. "And I sort of said, 'Are you fair dinkum? I can't look at her?' I found the whole thing bizarre."
At one point, Breen said he had to tell DeGeneres' staffers to be quiet as they kept laughing at all her jokes, which interfered with filming.
"I have no idea whether she's a nice person or not, I wouldn't have a clue," he said. "But I can tell you the people who work with her walked on eggshells the whole time."
He added: "We're there to do an interview to promote what she's doing, but you can't look at her? Someone get real."
Last week Telepictures and Warner Bros. TV executives sent a memo to employees of the "Ellen DeGeneres Show" announcing that an internal review would be conducted, sources revealed to Variety in a report published Monday. Current and former staffers will be interviewed and questioned about their experiences working on the set of the long-running show.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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