Ellen DeGeneres allegedly uses her staff to keep the audience from the Riff-Raff room from getting close to her.
Ellen DeGeneres has returned for a new season, but the complaints about her and her show have never stopped. A former employee shared that her staff joined some of the audience in the Riff-Raff room to ensure that no one can get too close to the host.
Ellen DeGeneres allegedly plants staff in the studio audience
Ellen DeGeneres promotes kindness in her show; that’s why many are inspired when they watch The Ellen show. However, according to the staff, they never felt kindness in the workplace.
“It was never a ‘kind’ place,” a staffer told The Sun.
“Ellen’s ‘be kind’ philosophy was never mentioned to us when we were working.”
The audience said she spoke up because she was worried that the people who enabled the toxic environment would get away with it.
The insider also shared that the audience who don’t get a seat were taken to the Riff-Raff room, where they watch the show on monitors. The tipster claimed that Ellen DeGeneres would regularly drop in the said room to greet the audience. But some of the people there were her staff who blend with the real audience to keep them from getting close to the host.
“Ellen would regularly go to say a quick ‘hi’ but what fans didn’t know is staffers took off their IDs and pretended to be audience members, then got in-between Ellen and genuine audience members so she didn’t have to get close to her fans,” the source said.
“I never knew why that was, I can only guess it was so she kept her own space.”
Ellen returns for a new season
Despite the controversy, The Ellen DeGeneres Show returns last month for season 18. According to an insider, Portia de Rossi and the staff applauded Ellen DeGeneres when she filmed the premiere episode.
One source said filming the episode was an emotional moment for everyone involved. The host also reached out to everyone after the show and thanked them.
Portia never left Ellen
Portia de Rossi is not very outspoken when it comes to supporting her wife, Ellen DeGeneres. But in August, she took to Instagram and publicly supported the Ellen host by sharing a picture with the words “I Stand By Ellen.”
An insider also said Ellen was grateful for her wife for sticking with her.
“Ellen’s so grateful to have Portia in her life as a soulmate and a sounding board, but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy,” an insider told Us Weekly.
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