Ellen DeGeneres, a staple of daytime American talk show culture, has said that she is ending her show after 19 seasons following allegations of toxic workplace, which DeGeneres says “destroyed” her. However, she insisted her decision to bring the curtain down on the daytime show named after her has nothing to do with allegations in the past year of a toxic workplace environment there, including bullying, racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
“When you’re a creative person, you constantly need to be challenged. And as great as this show is, and as fun as it is, it’s just not a challenge anymore,” DeGeneres told The Hollywood Reporter.
Earlier, in 2020 when complaints from staffers working on the show came out, DeGeneres acknowledged there were problems and pledged to do better.
“It almost impacted the show,” Ellen said. “It was very hurtful to me. I mean, very. But if I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season.”
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DeGeneres is believed to have been considering ending the show for several years. In a 2018 New York Times profile, Ellen had revealed that her actress wife, Portia de Rossi, had been encouraging her to move on from the 180-shows-a-year gig, while her comedian brother, along with executives at Warner Bros., had urged her to continue. In the end, DeGeneres signed on for three more seasons but had decided that this contract — which would take her well beyond 3,000 shows, and a stunning 2,400 celebrity interviews — would be her last.
She is scheduled for a television interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday to talk about ending the program.
The final episode is scheduled for the spring of 2022.
The 63-year-old host, writer, producer, actress and comedian won dozens of Emmy awards for the show and has been a pioneer of the LGBTQ community in America since she came out as gay in 1997. That revelation shocked America and nearly doomed her career.
