After spending her entire career as a comedian and talk-show host consumed by what other people think of her, Ellen DeGeneres says in her new Netflix special For Your Approval that she “just can’t anymore.”
“But if I’m being honest, and I have a choice of people remembering me as someone who was mean or someone who was beloved,” DeGeneres confesses to the audience of fans who attended the taping at Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theater, she chooses beloved.
While DeGeneres spends much of the special making her case to be viewed with affection once again — reminding us of her steady and hard-earned rise to popularity, and laying out the harsh treatment she feels she’s experienced at the hands of the media — some staffers who used to work on The Ellen DeGeneres Show say the one-hour routine “continues to invalidate and deny our experiences.” Six former employees contacted by Rolling Stone (all of whom still work in Hollywood and asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution) say that in the special, DeGeneres conflates rumors about her unpleasant behavior with more serious allegations, made in the summer of 2020, of racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation at the talk show. Those claims (published in a BuzzFeed News story by this reporter) led to an internal investigation at the show and the firing of three producers.
“There’s a difference between your persona and the way that you were handled in the media versus the culture that you perpetuated which hurt a lot of people,” one former employee tells Rolling Stone. “She was misrepresenting the narrative and trying to reframe herself as not a bully…She really missed the mark.”
In the first few minutes of For Your Approval, which began streaming Sept. 24, DeGeneres walks viewers through her professional legacy in a montage of clips, resurfacing all she’s been through on a public stage. We watch as she gets her start doing stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, lands the 1994 ABC sitcom Ellen, faces widespread criticism after coming out as gay on the series, and finds success again with her daytime talk show. DeGeneres then insinuates she was on the receiving end of a social media pile-on prompted by a post on X asking for “mean stories” about her, which led to a flood of headlines about the working environment at her show. Taking the stage to begin her set, DeGeneres then says she was “kicked out of show business” twice — once for being gay and once for being mean.
It’s a solid attempt at reframing the narrative around why The Ellen DeGeneres Show went off the air in 2022 after 19 seasons, former employees acknowledge. But it’s one that still evades responsibility for the show’s allegedly toxic workplace, they say. “It feels like it’s manipulative,” one former employee says. “You’re titling the show For Your Approval, which suggests that you’re trying to guilt the audience into feeling bad for you, and then you’re trying to empower yourself at the same time by saying that you endured all of this hard stuff.”
DeGeneres, 66, has said that after this latest Netflix special she’s taking a step back from Hollywood, although former employees are skeptical this is truly her final foray in the spotlight. Some also point out the irony in DeGeneres saying she was “kicked out of show business” while being able to share that allegation on a global platform like Netflix. Back in 2018, DeGeneres reportedly took home $20 million for her first Netflix special, Relatable. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she signed a two-special deal with the streamer at the time, which For Your Approval fulfills.
“She made millions of dollars doing a Netflix special talking about how she got canceled, but by nature of making millions of dollars to do a Netflix special, you were not silenced,” one former staffer says. “You were not kicked out of Hollywood. Most people can’t get Netflix specials.”
ONE FORMER EMPLOYEE in particular says they looked up to DeGeneres when they were growing up, which made their working experience behind the scenes especially disappointing. The former staffer understands and even empathizes with the experiences DeGeneres shares in the special about being ostracized from the entertainment industry after she came out as gay, but they also don’t think that experience negates what her employees may have endured. Both things can be true at once, according to the former staffer: Hollywood was cruel and discriminatory to DeGeneres, and she allegedly fostered an unwelcoming environment behind the scenes of her show.
“As a young person figuring out my sexuality and also being a huge fan of comedy, she [was] the perfect person to idolize,” the employee says. “I have empathy for what she went through back then, and I wish that she could have that empathy now. Especially after all the things she went through, you would think she would try to remember or relate on a human level instead of turning everything into material.”
Another employee is struck by how DeGeneres compares her “career ending” when she came out on her sitcom with her talk show ending because people perceived her to be mean. Employees say the comedian’s use of the passive voice and her implications that these things happened to her instead of taking ownership of her own behavior is tone deaf, perpetuating a pattern of non-accountability they say DeGeneres has demonstrated over time.
“Even if [her cancellation] was because she was mean, that is something that she has done to other people, whereas being gay is about her being judged, and it’s interesting that she can’t see it outside of the lens of herself,” one employee says. “It only exists as either ‘it’s happening to me because I am a strong woman’ or ‘it’s happening to me because I am gay.’ It’s impossible that ‘these are the consequences for my actions.’ That doesn’t even come into her brain that these are consequences.”
During the special, DeGeneres discusses her role as a boss and leader on the show despite the fact that she never wanted to be either of those things. She also details her own recollections of working behind the scenes with her staffers and colleagues, which are all happy and positive. There was a yearslong game of tag, DeGeneres says, as well as constant pranks. Former employees who spoke to Rolling Stone say even though DeGeneres tries to convince the audience “it was a happy-go-lucky place,” that was only a reality for certain staffers.
“The people she liked and the people that she surrounded herself with did have a great time,” one former employee says. “The favoritism was just so blatant and trickled down to the executive producers, producers, and managers. That’s kind of the point, is that the people you’re playing tag with aren’t the people that were being asked to leave the kitchen that they’re eating in so you can walk by.”
Some employees believe it’s also ironic for DeGeneres to mention the toll of cancellation on her mental health considering their own struggles with their mental health while working under her. One former writer on the show, referring to DeGeneres’ penchant for pranks where she would intentionally frighten her employees, adds, “It is true that she scared people [as a joke], but that’s not always a comfortable workplace to be in where you’re on edge that at some point someone’s going to jump out of your closet and it’s the person that you’re most scared of. I would have nightmares for years after that she would be chasing me, and I wasn’t even involved in that tag game.”
COMEDIAN AND PODCAST HOST Kevin Porter sparked a public dialogue about DeGeneres back on March 20, 2020, when he shared a post on X that read: “Right now we all need a little kindness. You know, like Ellen Degeneres always talks about! She’s also notoriously one of the meanest people alive. Respond to this with the most insane stories you’ve heard about Ellen being mean & I’ll match every one w/ $2 to @LAFoodBank.”
A version of Porter’s message appears in the beginning montage of the Netflix special, although it isn’t verbatim and doesn’t specifically credit Porter. Porter tells Rolling Stone the original intent of the post was to raise money at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in a lighthearted way, something he saw a lot of his peers doing online. He also points out that while For Your Approval makes it appear as if his jab came out of nowhere in the midst of DeGeneres’ massively successful talk show, the missing context is important. In the year leading up to the post, Porter says, DeGeneres’ stock was already down with the general public: She defended Kevin Hart when he was fired from hosting the Oscars because of his past anti-gay tweets; she doubled down on her friendship with George W. Bush despite criticism from her fans; and Dakota Johnson famously called out DeGeneres out on her show for saying she hadn’t been invited to Johnson’s birthday party when, in fact, she had been.
“Those things are nothing but the consequences of her actions. Whether you even agree or disagree with it, Dakota Johnson calling [DeGeneres] out for something being bullshit and Ellen receiving criticism for rubbing shoulders with someone that a lot of her fan base and audience find disgusting were completely self-inflicted, as far as her reputation and character goes,” Porter explains. “My tweet is quite lightweight and a little more juicy gossip…Then [in the Netflix special] it becomes a better scapegoat for the negative attention. It was a pretty masterful reframing and dodge of everything.”
According to Porter, no one connected with the special reached out for his permission to use his social media post, which is why his name and avatar photo were blurred. The Netflix special also shows a different date on the post — Porter posted on March 20 and in the montage it reads March 30 — and leaves out any mention of donating money to the L.A. Food Bank. (Representatives for Netflix and DeGeneres did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.)
As for whether or not the ex-employees found DeGeneres’ act funny, there were mixed reactions. Most staffers who spoke to Rolling Stone say they thought DeGeneres was punching down; one thought it was “elementary comedy” compared to what the comedian has put out in the past. Some say they appreciated a few jokes, specifically pointing to one about “Could a mean person dance up stairs?” as a bit that flirts with self-awareness and is genuinely funny. But overall, they think For Your Approval doesn’t land.
“She is a charming person when she tries to be, but it’s also hard, because there’s a level of artifice to it,” one former writer says. “When you’ve written for her and you’ve come up with jokes that were supposed to make her seem relatable, now watching it, I’m like, I know all these anecdotes are fake, right? There’s nothing true about any of these. So it’s harder to think she’s funny.”
Some former employees admit they tuned into the special out of curiosity despite feeling triggered by their former boss. As one person describes it, “Even however many years removed I am from working there, seeing her just brings me back to that fear and that anxiety that I would have. Literally, the sight of her gives me a trauma response. I can’t say that for any other job I’ve had in any other field.”
Other former employees, meanwhile, tell Rolling Stone they have “zero interest” in watching the special at all. “It was part of the healing process for everybody [to open up about the show], but now I’m so over it that I don’t even like to look at her,” one former staffer says. “And I won’t be adding to her money by adding viewership.” Another former employee who opted out of watching the special adds, “I doubt this is the last time we’ll hear from her. If there’s a big enough price tag on something, she’ll do it.”
For one employee in particular, watching the special actually brought a degree of finality to their time working at The Ellen DeGeneres Show and the stress-inducing news cycle that surrounded the show’s end.
“Without [her] taking really any responsibility — because she never really took much, if any, responsibility — I did feel a little closure. It’s like, OK, that’s that,” they say. “She’s back in comedian mode. I like her better there, anyway.”
