The Ellen DeGeneres Show (weekdays at 3pET on CTV) has returned from hiatus with its first episode since allegations of workplace toxicity arose, and the host addressed the controversy head-on with a seven-minute monologue."How was everybody's summer, good? Mine was great," DeGeneres joked at the start of the show. "There are a lot of things I want to talk about. I've been looking forward to addressing it all directly, and unfortunately talking directly to people has been illegal for six months."DeGeneres then turned more serious as she addressed the allegations against her show. “As you may have heard, this summer there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show and then there was an investigation. I learned that things happened here that never should have happened,” she said. “I take that very seriously and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected. I know that I'm in a position of privilege and power and I realized that with that comes responsibility, and I take responsibility for what happens at my show.”
She then addressed the “articles in the press and on social media that said that I am not who I appear to be on TV,” referring to her moniker as “the ‘Be Kind’ lady,” which, as she explained, took off after she started saying “be kind” in the wake of Tyler Clementi’s 2010 suicide precipitated by anti-gay bullying. She explained that being “the ‘Be Kind’ lady” was a title anyone would approach with caution.“Being known as the ‘Be Kind’ lady is a tricky position to be in. The truth is, I am that person that you see on TV. I am also a lot of other things,” she said in her poignant monologue.“Sometimes I get sad, I get mad, I get anxious, I get frustrated, I get impatient. And I am working on all of that. I am a work in progress. I am especially working on the impatience thing and it's not going well because it's not happening fast enough, I’ll tell ya that.” Touché.
“I am a talk show host, and you know that. But maybe some of you know that I was an actress. I've played a straight woman in movies, so I'm a pretty good actress,” she said to laughs, reminding us that *gasp* she actually had a long movie career before her talk show or
Finding Nemo (we recommend her 1996 movie
Mr. Wrong FWIW).She continued, “But I don't think that I'm that good that I can come out here every day for 17 years and fool you. This is me. And my intention is always to be the best person I can be. If I've ever let someone down, if I've ever hurt their feelings, I am so sorry for that. If that's ever the case, I've let myself down and I've hurt myself as well.” Her emphasis on the “if” is a little, um, iffy, but we’ll let her finish.“I always try to grow as a person. I look at everything that comes into my life as an opportunity to learn. I got into this business to make people laugh and feel good - that's my favourite thing to do. That and Jenga, love that game.” SAME.Ellen topped off her monologue by praising the 270 employees under her, adding, “All I want is for every single one of them to be happy and to be proud to work here.”“This has been a horrible summer for people all around the world. People are losing their jobs, people are losing loved ones to a pandemic. People are losing their homes and lives in raging fires that are going on. There's blatant racial injustice all around us. I watch the news and feel like ‘Where do we even begin?’ So my hope is that we can still be a place of happiness and joy.”She concluded: “I still want to be the one hour a day that people can go to escape and laugh. I want to continue to help all the people that we help every day. I am committed to making this the best season we have ever had.”That’s definitely a tall order, but of course, only time will tell if she can prove it. In the meantime, we did enjoy tuning in to see her first live and in-person guest Tiffany Haddish (who was placed 2 metres away from Ellen, naturally) poke a little fun at the entire scandal by telling Ellen she should “be kind . . . of crazy.”Watch
The Ellen DeGeneres Show weekdays at 3pET on CTV.[video_embed id='2031334']ICYMI: Ellen DeGeneres to address backstage drama [/video_embed]
