Ellen DeGeneres seeks support from matriarch Kris Jenner as backlash continues over ‘toxic’ workplace culture
Ellen DeGeneres has turned to Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner for support as she continues to face a backlash over a “toxic” workplace culture on her show.
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Ellen DeGeneres has turned to Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner for support as she continues to face a backlash over a “toxic” workplace culture on her TV program.
The concerned host, who has watched on as three senior producers were fired amid various allegations, has received backing from a number of celebrities - including Kris, 64, according to The Sun.
An insider said Jenner has been a “pillar of strength” in private, meeting with DeGeneres and Aussie wife de Rossi.
They said: “If anybody knows scandal, it’s Kris, and she’s been a real pillar of strength for Ellen during this difficult time, she’s found it very reassuring.
“Ellen has spent years being loved by viewers and this has understandably hit her hard, she wants to come back from it and prove to her audience that things are going to change.
“Kris has done it all with Keeping Up With The Kardashians, she knows how to weather a storm.
“She’s been on the phone to Ellen and Portia a lot and they’ve met in person, they have a great bond.”
The informant added: “Ellen is just thankful to have some of the stars she’s classed as close friends over the years have her back both publicly and privately, Kris has been brilliant.”
Although she never posted a statement, Kris showed her support for the star on social media by liking a meme reading: “I Stand By Ellen” shared by wife Portia de Rossi.
When approached by The Sun, a rep for Kris Jenner claimed this story is “inaccurate.”
Meanwhile, the 62-year-old host has broken her silence to say she will be reaching out to fans about the ongoing controversy in coming weeks.
Most recently, after leaving a restaurant with a friend, Ellen was asked by waiting media her thoughts about the recent firing of the three producers.
“I will be talking to my fans,” DeGeneres said, according to the Daily Mail.
DeGeneres was also seen lunching with friend, actor Kevin Hart, after the allegations came to light, as the pair were pictured hugging following a chat over a glass of wine in California.
Hart defended her on Twitter, writing: “I have known Ellen for years and I can honestly say that she’s one of the dopest people on the f***ing planet. She has treated my family and team with love and respect from day one.”
His support comes as Ellen was left “teary-eyed” and “emotional” at a recent staff meeting about the workplace allegations as her employees were also offered additional perks.
STAR HAS ‘COMPASSION’ FOR ‘AWKWARD’ ELLEN
Actress and former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell has revealed she has “compassion” for Ellen DeGeneres as the star’s public image continues to take a battering amid claims she fostered a toxic work environment that led to bullying, racism and sexual harassment by some of her senior staffers.
O’Donnell, who hosted her own wildly popular show from 1996-2002, told Busy Phillipps’ podcast that when comes to appearing on a talk show, “You can’t fake your essence.”
“That’s why I have compassion for Ellen [DeGeneres], right?” O’Donnell said. “I have compassion, even though, you know, I hear the stories and I understand. I think she has some social awkwardness.”
“I think that from knowing her for so many years I have my own kind of history with her,” O’Donnell added.
O’Donnell, who came out publicly as gay in 2002 (five years after DeGeneres), also spoke how hosting a talk show for a long period of time can play tricks with your sense of self, saying that it isn’t like “anything close to real life.”
“You know, you get mass adulation from the multitudes every day, like a shot of heroin in your arm,” she said.
“You get people clapping at your very existence and then telling you how you altered their life, and it’s a lot to take in. And when I stepped away, I knew that this was all I could take.”
O’Donnell also felt the wrath of public backlash after she engaged in a long-running feud with Donald Trump and later walked off her hosting gig on The View in 2007 after an on-air fight with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck over the Iraq war.
O’Donnell, who starred in ’90s classics A League of Their Own and Sleepless in Seattle, also told Phillips why she had never appeared on DeGeneres’ show once, despite their long history together.
“You know how Ellen surprises everyone?” O’Donnell said. “I’ve never done that show because I’m terrified she’s going to scream … scare me and give me a heart attack.”
Numerous high profile Hollywood figures have come out in support of DeGeneres, including Katy Perry and Kevin Hart, who recently said knows how “lonely” it can get “when people just turn their back on you.”
“So for the ones that you love, that are close to your heart, you just want them to have some support when it seems that there is none out there, and that’s just who I am as a person,” Hart, who was recently photographed having lunch with DeGeneres, told Deadline.
HOW ELLEN CAN ‘COME BACK FROM THE DEAD’
Meanwhile, a top US public relations expert has weighed in on the crisis, saying that the star can revive her shaky career on one condition — that she take a stand.
“The perception of Ellen was as this funny, dorky, naive, non-threatening person and to find out that she is not that in real life is very disappointing to the folks who fly across the country to sit in her audience and get up to dance in the aisles,” Cathy Renna of top US PR firm TargetCue told News Corp Australia.
“Ellen did a brave and extraordinary thing coming out in 1997 and it had a powerful impact. But the backlash from that giant leap forward prompted her downfall in the late ’90s. This is a very different situation. We’re now living in a time where toxic behaviour is beyond unacceptable and once uncovered it can really be something that is impossible to come back from.”
But Renna, who has also worked in crisis management, thinks DeGeneres can come back — because she has done it before.
“Ellen came back from the dead in the late ’90s,” says Renna. “She came back roaring as a kind, lesbian version of Oprah.”
But as her popularity and privilege grew the award-winning TV host lost touch with those who stood by her.
“She never got involved in the LGBTQ community as an activist. She was seen hanging out with George Bush at that football game. She compared isolation in a $45 million mansion to being in prison. She is a little bit tone deaf to politics and the perception of things,” Renna says.
“One way to come back from this is to be more engaged and vocal and to be seen taking a stand on things. At the end of the day that’s what it’s about.”
It comes as DeGeneres will reportedly address fans over allegations she enabled a toxic workplace environment.
The 62-year-old was filmed leaving a restaurant in California where she was asked by a reporter how her show would change following the sacking of her three top producers, Ed Glavin, Kevin Leman and co-executive producer Jonathan Norman.
“I will be talking to my fans,” she said in the video posted to the Daily Mail.
In recent months, a growing tide of backlash against the star proliferated on social media as former and current employees of the show came forward with grievances.
The show’s parent company, WarnerMedia, launched an internal investigation into the allegations.
On July 30, DeGeneres attempted damage control by issuing an apology email to current staffers but many felt she did not take full responsibility for the alleged unkind culture of the show.
Instead, DeGeneres was viewed as having thrown her own top executive producers under the bus.
Last week, DeGeneres addressed staff via video conferencing to announce the firings of the three executives and to promote DJ Stephen Laurel ‘twitch’ Boss to executive producer. She also apologised to staff and last week Variety reported that DeGeneres had offered employees better workplace benefits.
While she is under contract to continue hosting The Ellen DeGeneres Show through 2022, and signed a new deal to develop three shows for WarnerMedia’s new streaming platform, HBO Max, this week Channel 9 announced it would stop airing the show.
The top-rated talk show had been broadcast on Nine since 2013 but repeat episodes have been taken off air during the ongoing investigation into workplace toxicity.
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“We are resting Ellen repeats on Nine and have replaced with Desperate Housewives,” a spokesman confirmed to News Corp Australia.
Repeats will continue to air on multichannel 9 Gem and Fox Arena.
Discussions between Channel 9 and Warner Bros. regarding broadcast rights for the upcoming season, which begins next month, are said to be “ongoing”.
Originally published as Ellen DeGeneres seeks support from matriarch Kris Jenner as backlash continues over ‘toxic’ workplace culture