Culture

Dakota Johnson’s eye-wateringly awkward Ellen takedown goes viral again and everyone’s making the same joke

Dakota Johnson and Ellen DeGeneres

Dakota Johnson v Ellen DeGeneres is the Frost/Nixon of our times. (YouTube)

Ellen DeGeneres’ excruciating interview with Dakota Johnson – which marked the start of the talkshow host’s downfall – is going viral once again.

On a fateful day in November 2019, 18 months before DeGeneres announcing she was calling time on her eponymous TV show, Johnson wandered onto the set of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to promote her film The Peanut Butter Falcon.

What was intended to be a light, frothy interview quickly went south as DeGeneres asked Johnson why she hadn’t been invited to her birthday party just weeks before.

“How was the party? I wasn’t invited,” DeGeneres said.

A visibly disgruntled Johnson replied: “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen. You were invited. Last time I was on the show, last year, you gave me a bunch of s**t about not inviting you but I didn’t even know you wanted to be invited.”

DeGeneres replied: “Well, who doesn’t want to be invited to a party?”

“Well, I didn’t even know you liked me,” Johnson said.

“Of course I like you! You knew I liked you. You’ve been on this show many times, and don’t I show like?”

Johnson agreed that DeGeneres shows “like”, before adding: “But I did invite you and you didn’t come.”

In a deeply painful exchange, DeGeneres tried to worm out of the situation by claiming that she didn’t receive an invite to the party. Johnson told her to “ask everybody”, while DeGeneres joked that she had a prior commitment “out of town”.

The clip quickly amassed millions of views after it aired in 2019 – for obvious reasons. Little did the world know, DeGeneres would later be accused of being “one of the meanest people alive” by comedian Kevin T Porter, while her talkshow would become embroiled in controversy following claims of a “toxic” workplace.

On Wednesday (12 May), DeGeneres announced that her long running talkshow will come to an end next year at the end of its 19th season – giving Twitter the perfect opportunity to resurrect Johnson’s 2019 interview.

One Twitter user shared the clip shortly after the news broke, writing: “Dakota Johnson has done more for society by ending Ellen DeGeneres than most of your faves have in their careers and it shows.”

https://twitter.com/canaryfilmss/status/1392492672686903297

The interview’s resurgence led to some truly hilarious tweets.

https://twitter.com/notn1co/status/1392494849283092484

Ellen DeGeneres is quitting her talkshow because it’s ‘just not a challenge anymore’

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday (12 May), DeGeneres said she was calling it quits on her talkshow because it was no longer a challenge.

“When you’re a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged – and as great as this show is, and as fun, as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore,” she said.

She also opened up about the departure of three senior producers from the talkshow last year after former and current staff claimed they were subjected to bullying, sexual misconduct and racism on set.

DeGeneres said the scandal was “very hurtful” to her, but denied it was the reason for ending the show.

“If I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season. So it’s not why I’m stopping, but it was hard because I was sitting at home, it was summer, and I see a story that people have to chew gum before they talk to me and I’m like, ‘OK, this is hilarious.'”

The controversy “destroyed” her, DeGeneres admitted, because she wanted to spread “kindness and compassion”.

“I’m not a scary person. I’m really easy to talk to. So, we’ve all learned from things that we didn’t realise – or I didn’t realise – were happening.”

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