After 19 seasons of her hit daytime talk show, Ellen DeGeneres has announced that she will be pulling the plug on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the 63-year-old claimed that wrapping up the Emmy Award-winning program was the plan for the past three years, and had nothing to do with the mounting sexual misconduct and toxic workplace allegations mounting against her and her staff.
“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.
“We [settled] on three more years and I knew that would be my last,” DeGeneres explained. “That’s been the plan all along. And everybody kept saying, even when I signed, ‘You know, that’s going to be 19, don’t you want to just go to 20? It’s a good number.’ So is 19.”
Recently under fire for allegations made against her and her team over the course of 2020, including reports of mistreatment in the workplace and unfair pay throughout the pandemic, she was also criticised for comparing social distancing in her multi-million dollar estate to being in “jail”.
However, while speaking to the publication, she chose to weigh in on the misconduct allegations, denying speculation that the controversies are the reasoning behind the show’s end.
“It was very hurtful to me,” she said. “I mean, very. But 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, ‘Okay, this is hilarious,'” she continued.
“Then I see another story of some other ridiculous thing and then it just didn’t stop. And I wasn’t working, so I had no platform, and I didn’t want to address it on [Twitter] and I thought if I just don’t address it, it’s going to go away because it was all so stupid.”
She continued: “It destroyed me, honestly. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. And it makes me really sad that there’s so much joy out there from negativity. It’s a culture now where there are just mean people, and it’s so foreign to me that people get joy out of that,”
“Then, on the heels of it, there are allegations of a toxic workplace and, unfortunately, I learned that through the press. And at first I didn’t believe it because I know how happy everybody is here and how every guest talks about, ‘Man, you have a great place here. Of all the talk shows I’ve done, everyone here is so happy.’ That’s all I’ve ever heard.”
Debuting in 2003, The Ellen DeGeneres Show has more than 60 Emmy Awards under its belt and saw DeGeneres pivot from her career in stand-up comedy to television. However, what made the talk show host as famous as she is today, was her decision to publicly come out as gay in a society that was far from accepting the LGBTQ+ community.
As for her decision to cancel her incredibly successful show, DeGeneres will be sitting down with Oprah Winfrey on May 13 to explain her reasoning why.
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