Having once been hailed the most beloved daytime talk show in the U.S., things have taken quite a drastic turn for Ellen Degeneres, who made headlines last year for allegedly leading a two-decade-long toxic work environment at Warner Bros. Studios, where her show is filmed.
Ellen, along with several senior producers, were accused of some not-so-nice behavior, which has made fans look at the 62-year-old in a different light. Her show has taken a huge hit with its day-to-day ratings, leading some to speculate whether 2021 could potentially be the end of the long-running chat show and its host.
Is Ellen’s Show Getting Cancelled?
In July 2020, just months after Ellen was slammed for her alleged bad behavior towards staff members, The Sun reported that her talk show was beginning to lose its dedicated viewership.
By December 2020, BuzzFeed went on to claim that multiple sponsors and advertisers had ended their relationship with Ellen, who also reportedly found it difficult booking guests for her show as many celebs didn’t want to be associated with her fiasco.
For her “12 Days of Giveaways” segment that very same month, an unnamed employee claimed that the gifts weren’t as great as they have been in the past and that was mainly because producers struggled to secure lucrative deals with brands since many chose to distance their firms from the show altogether.
“In a typical year, ‘12 Days of Giveaways’ is huge. We’ve basically claimed Christmas on daytime TV. When you think of Christmas on TV, you think of The Ellen Show,” the employee said.
“Everyone wants to be in the audience. Everyone wants the gifts. And so we line up all these crazy sponsors, and people love it. But this year, our ‘12 Days’ is more condensed. We don’t have as many sponsors.
“This feels like our make-it-or-break-it moment. This will be our biggest report card. If we pick up sponsors by the new year, then we’re cooking, we’ll be fine, and we’ll sell kindness in a bottle. But if we fail that report card, who knows.”
Ellen’s image was greatly affected by the string of scandals that came out about her over the summer of 2020, including allegations that she doesn’t allow her staff to look directly at her.
And, as fans can imagine, the show has struggled to gain any major interviews with A-list celebs because a lot of them have either shunned Ellen for the things that have been said about her, or they just think it’s a bad look to be seen with the comedian at this time.
But one has to wonder whether Ellen can ever recover from the backlash she received when dozens of former team members spoke out against her, saying she’s not the nicest person to be around — especially when it comes to working for the Emmy award-winning star.
The current employee continued telling BuzzFeed, “For the first time, everyone was starting to ask us, ‘If you have an idea, tell us because we will listen. If you have an idea for a celeb, even if they’re not A-list or famous, we’ll take anyone who will bring us numbers and eyeballs.
“That’s when they started to be real with us and essentially said, ‘Give us anything because we need help.’ Our old strategy doesn’t work anymore.”
Several agencies and publicists have also spoken to the news outlet, claiming that they wouldn’t dare book their clients to appear on Ellen, knowing very well that doing so could potentially tarnish their reputation in the process.
One source, in particular, was very vocal in saying that Ellen’s show has lost its spark years ago, and even if she had never found herself in hot water like she did last year, it wouldn’t have been long before Warner Bros. would have pulled the plug entirely.
While ratings have been decreasing at a more rapid rate since the summer of 2020, Ellen was also accused of selling out and no longer caring about the authenticity behind her show, with one insider stressing it has more or less become the go-to platform for the Kardashians to gush about their lives.
“It felt very set up. It’s a place that’s very manufactured for Scooter Braun or for Kim Kardashian’s family to say whatever they wanted,” they said.
“It became something manufactured as opposed to something more authentic, which it used to be. Ellen started veering towards super Hollywood years ago as opposed to being who she is, and she lost her realness along the way.”