Ellen DeGeneres ‘tormented’ home staff, treated them like ‘nothing’, and ‘took pleasure’ in firing employees
Ellen DeGeneres during a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. (Getty/Brooks Kraft)
Ellen DeGeneres “tormented” home staff and treated them like they were “nothing”, according to an anonymous former staffer.
The comments were made by an unnamed person who claimed to be a former employee of DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi in their Los Angeles home.
The anonymous staffer told the Daily Mail that the embattled talk show host “took pleasure” in firing people, and said she was “the worst person” they had ever met.
“Sometimes she would yell at us but it was more about the incredibly condescending tone she would use,” the staffer told the news outlet.
“She treated you like you were nothing.
“She was going to torture you and you were just going to sit there and listen to it because you were being paid.
“Ellen was the worst person that I’ve ever met in my life. She takes pleasure in firing people,” the source added.
The source claimed to have worked in DeGeneres’ home for several months before they were fired.
Ellen DeGeneres allegedly left ‘traps’ around the house to catch staff who weren’t doing their jobs properly.
The staffer said they saw DeGeneres as a “hero” before joining her staff, but their opinion of the star quickly changed once they entered the home.
They said they were warned in advance by others that DeGeneres had a high staff turnover and that they should “avoid as much direct contact” with the talk show host as possible.
However, when they were interviewed by DeGeneres, they said that their concerns were assuaged, as she was “charming, funny and perfectly lovely”.
But the unnamed source suggested that staff could do nothing right, with no job meeting DeGeneres’ standards.
DeGeneres would constantly confront staff with a list of issues from the previous day, the unnamed source alleged.
“There might be 20 to 30 things every day. We are talking about the finest, finest details here – a salt shaker out of place or a light switch left on.”
They also alleged that DeGeneres would “leave traps” around her home, such as putting matchsticks in certain locations, in an effort to make sure staff were cleaning and dusting properly.
“One day the staff found around eight of them, all in weird places. The rest of the day became a race to find them all before she got home and fired someone,” the source claimed.
The unnamed former staffer said they were “always stressed out” while working for DeGeneres and found themselves constantly “on the verge of tears”.
“You stick it out because quitting looks bad on your resume but everyone in Hollywood knows what’s going on there.”
Sources close to the star told the Daily Mail that the ex-staffer’s story had been completely fabricated, and denied that she lays traps or confronts home staff with issues.
Ellen DeGeneres has seen her public reputation torn to shreds in recent months.
In March, the floodgates opened when one of DeGeneres’ ex-employees Kevin T Porter called her “one of the meanest people alive” and urged others to share their “insane stories” about the star.
Her reputation was damaged even further when former and current staffers told Buzzfeed News that workers were being mistreated on the set of her talkshow while DeGeneres turned a “blind eye”.
The star has promised to address the allegations of racism, bullying and sexual misconduct on the set of her show when it returns for its new season.
