In an report from Variety on Thursday, Crew members from The Ellen Degeneres Show spoke out about their treatment during the quarantine.
Their biggest complaint seemed to be with the lack of communication they had received from the show’s producers, with little information given on whether they would keep their jobs and what would happen to their pay. For two weeks, from late March through early April, there was seemingly no contact at all, as production company Telepictures sorted out how they were going to resume operations given current restrictions—which included hiring an outside, non-union firm to perform various functions, many of which existing, unionized crew members could have handled from home.
All the while the show’s staff of more than 30 employees was reaching out for answers. When they finally heard back, they found out that they were keeping their jobs, but their hours—and pay—would be reduced by more than half. While it’s pretty standard for faceless corporations to make dispassionate, even cruel cuts whenever possible, there was a very obvious option to avoid the cuts in this case: Ellen could have stepped up.
Ellen makes more than $50 million each year through her talk show alone, all while preaching the message to “be kind.” It’s previously been reported that she can often be
rude, touchy, and ill-tempered, but we all have moods and being occasionally (or even frequently) unpleasant does not preclude kindness. What does preclude kindness, and reopen questions of DeGeneres’ hypocrisy, is sitting on a
hoarded wealth of hundreds-of-millions of dollars and not even bothering to sell one of several six-figure Rolexes to make sure your employees are fully paid through this crisis. Jimmy Kimmel managed to pay his crew out of his own pocket, and he doesn’t make half what Ellen does (and is
hardly a paragon of virtue himself).
Perhaps even more galling is the fact that Ellen was making a show of her desperate need to talk to people on the phone—calling celebrities, friends, family members—all while the people who work for her were reaching out for some clarification and reassurance in a time of fear and uncertainty.
When The Ellen DeGeneres Show came back on the air on April 7th, after its brief hiatus, Ellen expressed how glad she was to be back, and cited her crew as a major motivation for returning, saying, “My staff and crew. I love them, I miss them, the best thing I can do to support them is to keep the show on the air.” While there is some measure of truth blended into that statement, it is overwhelmed by the realization of her neglect. These people she supposedly misses and loves depend on her for their livelihoods, and she has failed to provide them even the bare minimum of support and compassion.
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