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Daytime talk show host Ellen Degeneres is not having a good month.
A few weeks back, DeGeneres was accused of being “one of the meanest people alive” in a viral Twitter thread that included ex-employees.
Then, a little over a week ago, as she restarted her show Ellen by taping it from her home, DeGeneres got flamed by the internet for saying being stuck in her giant mansion is “like being in jail.”
Ellen ended up deleting that video and replacing it with this edited version.
Now, on Thursday, Variety published a scathing piece about how the crew of Ellen is “outraged” over their treatment by the show’s producers, poor communication regarding pay and working hours, and Degeneres’ use of non-union workers for her in-home shows.
Some highlights…
The core stage crew for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” consisting of more than 30 employees, received no written communication about the status of their working hours, pay, or inquiries about their mental and physical health from producers for over a month, said two sources, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.
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For more than two weeks, from late March through April 9, crew members — from lighting to camera operators to grips — were left in the dark about if and how much they would be paid.
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On April 2, the majority of the crew members were shocked to discover that DeGeneres had a remote set erected at her residence where she was taping, a fact they learned via social media posts from colleagues in other departments, insiders said.
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Adding insult to injury, sources said that while most of the crew was left out of work with reduced pay, the remote production has hired Key Code Media, a Burbank-based audiovisual house, to help produce technical elements of the show while crew members with the same skills sit idle.
During that initial broadcast from her home slash “jail,” Degeneres, who earns more than $50 million per year from her show, said, “I wanted to start doing my new show as soon as possible because it’s really for people who are stuck at home, and especially my staff and crew. I love them, I miss them, and the best thing I can do to support them is to keep the show on the air.”