Ellen DeGeneres: Bad boss or victim of misogyny?

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May 14, 2021

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Jacinda Ardern wants to boost New Zealand-U.S. trade, a teachers’ union head calls for a full return to the classroom, and we’re cringing through Ellen DeGeneres’s farewell tour. Have a restful weekend.
– Ellen’s last dance. As we reported earlier this week, Ellen DeGeneres has announced that the upcoming 19th season of her daytime talk show will be its last.
The news comes after a pair of Buzzfeed stories reporting that the show was a toxic place to work, with current and former employees making various reports of sexual misconduct, harassment, and racist behavior. While none of those allegations were leveled at DeGeneres herself, many staffers felt that she was ultimately responsible for what happened at the show that bears her name. An investigation ensued; DeGeneres apologized on air and three top producers were fired.
Watching this all unfold has been complicated. DeGeneres has defined her talk show persona as the “Be Kind Lady” (such a mainstream, unobjectionable idea that it’s hard to remember what a big, shocking deal it was when she came out to the world back in 1997). And there’s a thread in the reporting around her that seems unhealthily fixated on proving that she wasn’t so kind after all.
Consider this, from one of Buzzfeed’s latest stories on the topic:
“In April 2020, beauty YouTuber Nikkie de Jager accused DeGeneres of being ‘cold and distant’ when she appeared on her show months earlier. DeGeneres’s bodyguard at the 2014 Academy Awards also spoke out about how unfriendly she was.”
Frankly, even when you’re talking about someone who created a brand around being nice, the idea that she might really be cold, distant, or unfriendly —and that that would be surprising or unforgivable—strikes me as weirdly naïve in terms of how celebrity culture works, and yes, misogynistic. Our society has little tolerance for “unlikeable” women, and lumping accusations of “diva-like” behavior with very real and very serious allegations about a toxic work environment does no one any favors.
Now, before you chide me for being too soft on DeGeneres, let’s talk about how she’s handled her farewell media tour, which has included both a stop at TODAY and a chat with Oprah. Throughout, she has denied that the accusations factored into her decision to end the show and, most egregiously, backpedaled furiously on taking any real responsibility for the situation. Professing her ignorance of the situation to TODAY, she said:
“I don’t know how I could have known when there’s 255 employees here and there are a lot of different buildings, unless I literally stay here until the last person goes home at night. It is my name on the show, so clearly it affects me and I have to be the one to stand up and say, ‘This can’t be tolerated.’ But I do wish somebody would have come to me and said, ‘Hey, something’s going on that you should know about.’”
Yes, keeping track of what’s happening at a 255-person enterprise is hard work (just ask a CEO!). But that’s the job. And assuming it’s the responsibility of that unnamed “somebody” to bring problems to her attention suggests a real disconnect with what it means to be in charge.
Elsewhere on her media tour, DeGeneres said that she too smells some misogyny in the mix, noting that in addition to being the Be Kind Lady, “I’m also a woman and I’m a boss.”
So, in this situation, what does it mean to be a boss? I’d say it means being as cold and unlikeable as you want—just take responsibility for your employees and the culture you create while you’re doing it.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

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PARTING WORDS

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