Ellen DeGeneres looks somber on walk with friend after show’s ex-producer claims host was ‘aware of abuse’ on set
ELLEN DeGeneres looks troubled as she is pictured amid allegations that her talk show set is a “toxic” environment.
Wearing a simple white tee and baggy shorts, the TV personality walked with a friend and appeared somber keeping her face covered with a baseball cap and sunglasses.
The claims against Ellen grow each day, and most recently her show’s ex-producer alleged that the host was “aware of abuse” on set.
Hedda Muskat was a producer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show when the program launched in 2003, but even today she still claims to remember the “culture of fear” around the workplace.
She told TheWrap: “I had never seen this before. I had never been around a toxic host.”
Hedda was hired by current executive producer Andy Lassner to work on the show, but less than two years later she was, allegedly, pushed aside for a younger and less experienced producer, before eventually being let go.
The former employee also claimed Ellen – whose wife Portia de Rossi has publicly defended her – witnessed executive producer Ed Glavin scream at a crew member.
She alleged: “He just went off on them. His whole face turned red. We were stunned.
“I was waiting for Ellen to say something. ‘Whoa, Ed, don’t talk like that.’
“Do you know what she did? She giggled. She crossed her legs up on the chair and she said, ‘Well, I guess every production needs their dog’ … And from then we knew. Ed was going to be the barking dog – her dog.”
The 62-year-old apologized for the allegations in a letter sent to employees, and admitted that she had to take responsibility as her name was at the top.
But she added that as the show has grown, she had “not been able to stay on top of everything” and had instead “relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I’d want them done.”
“Clearly some didn’t,” she wrote. “That will now change and I’m committed to ensuring this does not happen again.”
An internal investigation by the talk show’s parent company WarnerMedia is now allegedly taking place after employees came forward about experiencing “racism, fear and intimidation” while working on the show.
In early July, Ellen employees revealed bombshell accusations they suffered from “racism, fear and intimidation” on set.
One current and 10 former crew members from the hit daytime series spoke to BuzzfeedNews about the “toxic work environment” but remained anonymous due to fear of retribution.
“Is she always nice? No,” said a former staffer. “It irritates me that people think she’s all sweetness and light and she gets away with it.”
A black woman, who once worked for Ellen, told the website that she experienced “racist comments, actions and microaggressions” during her year and a half as an employee.
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She also alleged that a main writer for the show told her at a company party: “I’m sorry, I only know the names of the white people who work here.”
YouTuber NikkieTutorials said appearing on the show had always been a dream, but she was none too happy with her experience, claiming Ellen was “distant and cold.”
Bachelor franchise star Corinne Olympios had previously accused Ellen of being “aggressive” and “very cold”, while former bodyguard Tom Majercak called the talk show host “cold” and “demeaning” after working with her at the 2014 Oscars, and claimed that “Ellen is the one person that I’ve been assigned to — and I’ve been assigned to quite a few celebrities — that has never taken the time to say hi to me.”
The future of the show remains up in the air, with insiders at the show’s network NBC telling The Sun that James Corden, 41, was seen as “the long term successor” to Ellen long before scandal hit the seemingly squeaky clean host.