Margaret Cho has had many run-ins with Ellen DeGeneres — greater than DeGeneres claims to recollect, apparently. In a current interview, Cho stated that DeGeneres had been “not good” to her and acted like they didn’t have historical past.
“Ellen was, like, actually bizarre and never good to me for many of my profession,” Cho stated on a brand new episode of The Kelly Mantle Present. “I opened for her within the Eighties, when she was a headliner in comedy golf equipment, [and] later, after I would do her discuss present within the 2000s, she acted like we simply met. And I’m like, ‘Bitch, what?’ Like, that’s bizarre. We go means again. … It’s so creepy and bizarre.”
Cho additionally recalled listening to that David Bowie spent a part of an Ellen DeGeneres Present interview praising the “big Chinese language emperor outfit” Cho had worn to his live performance the evening earlier than — and that DeGeneres left these feedback on the reducing room flooring.
“The producer, who’s a extremely good buddy of mine, needed to name me and inform me, ‘I can’t consider she did this, however she reduce it out of the present. However it’s essential to know that he was occurring and on about your outfit. He loves you. God stated your title,’” Cho stated.
Cho advised Mantle she thought that omission was “so impolite” however conceded DeGeneres might need reduce Bowie’s feedback for time. “However nonetheless, I’m going to take it personally, simply because I made a decision to,” she quipped.
Different celebrities spoke out about DeGeneres in 2020, after Ellen staffers alleged that her discuss present had a poisonous office tradition riddled by racism, intimidation, and sexual harassment.
In a now-unavailable tweet, Everyone Loves Raymond alum Brad Garrett alleged that the alleged toxicity got here “from the highest” at Ellen and that it was “widespread information” that DeGeneres handled folks “horribly,” per Individuals.
Again to the Future actor Lea Thompson vouched for Garrett’s assertion, tweeting, “True story. It’s.”
That very same yr, Cho gave her tackle the Ellen controversy on the Sizzling Takes & Deep Dives podcast. “She undoubtedly is frightening,” the comic stated on the time. “I’m nonetheless petrified of Ellen. … Everyone ought to be petrified of Ellen.”
Again in 2016, comedian Kathy Griffin stated in her e-book Superstar Run-Ins: My A–Z Index that she was “virtually optimistic a sure beloved daytime discuss present host as soon as had [her] kicked out of a backstage dressing room on the Emmy Awards,” per Us Weekly.
Griffin added, “I can’t show it, however this individual, who has brief [blond] hair, has a imply streak that every one of Hollywood is aware of about.”
DeGeneres mirrored on her discuss present’s controversy and her public persona in her 2024 stand-up particular, Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval. “Yeah, the ‘be type’ lady wasn’t type, that was the headline,” she stated, per Leisure Weekly. “Right here’s the issue: I’m a comic who obtained a chat present and I ended the present each day by saying, ‘Be type to 1 one other.’ Had I ended my present by saying, ‘Go f*** yourselves,’ folks would’ve been pleasantly stunned to search out out I’m type.”
She continued, “I didn’t go into this enterprise for cash. It was about therapeutic my childhood wounds. I assumed if I might make folks blissful, then they’ll like me. And in the event that they like me, I’ll be ok with myself. All I can say about that’s, thank God for the cash.”