Former employees open up about "toxic" work environment at Ellen

Anyone who spends much time anywhere near the topic of Ellen DeGeneres on social media tends to pick up a few horror stories pretty quickly; it’s not for nothing that a Twitter post from this March, promising a food bank donation for every “Ellen being mean” story told, ended up getting more than 2,000 responses. Regardless of whatever motivation you want to ascribe to it—or the accuracy of the tales themselves—there’s a satisfaction in being told that America’s most aggressively smile-y talk show host is a lot less pleasant in person than she is when she’s busy dancing around the studio or catching a ball game with her ol’ pal George.
It’s to the credit of a Buzzfeed News article posted earlier tonight, then, that it knowingly resists that satisfaction. Instead, the article—written by Krystie Lee Yandoli, and featuring anonymous reports from 10 former Ellen employees (and one current one)—focuses on the show as a workplace, levying accusations of racist behavior, hostility to criticism, and a general description of the place as a toxic work environment. Where it’s critical of DeGeneres, it’s not because she threw an intern out a window for making eye contact or whatever, but for her alleged failures as an executive producer on the series: “If she wants to have her own show and have her name on the show title, she needs to be more involved to see what’s going on,” one former employee stated, suggesting that DeGeneres is insulated by higher-ups from any complaints about what working at the series is like.