Entertainment
Jimmy Kimmel fails to ask Ellen DeGeneres about ‘toxic’ workplace scandal during televised interview
Jimmy Kimmel sat down for a televised interview with fellow talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, failing to bring up the ‘toxic’ workplace scandal that rocked her series last year.
In the summer of 2020, allegations were made of misconduct behind-the-scenes of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, with anonymous employees claiming that they were working in an environment of racism, fear and intimidation.
In a candid statement delivered on the show in September 2020, Ellen, 62, addressed the ‘allegations of a toxic work environment at our show’, stating: ‘I learned that things happened here that never should have happened. I take that very seriously and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected.’
While Ellen has spoken about the controversy in the months following, saying that it ‘broke my heart’, it might have come as a surprise to TV viewers when Jimmy, 53, didn’t bring it up at all during Ellen’s first major sit-down interview since the allegations came to light.
Instead, the pair spoke about weed – with Ellen referring to it as ‘wacky tobaccy’ – discussed Ellen’s wife Portia de Rossi’s recent appendectomy and played a game of Who’s High?, where they had to guess which of a group of three participants were high.
They also played a game called Did We Do It?, where they both had to try and remember if they had or hadn’t done certain scenarios on their respective shows, such as jumping into a ball pit with Britney Spears.
The Daily Beast first reported on the absence of the ‘toxic’ workplace scandal from Ellen and Jimmy’s conversation, which also included mention of Ellen’s new furniture show Ellen DeGeneres’ Next Great Designer, co-hosted by Scandal star Scott Foley.
In March this year, it emerged that The Ellen DeGeneres Show had lost over 1million viewers following the claims made about a ‘toxic work environment’.
According to data measurement firm Nielsen, the show saw a sharp decrease in its viewership after the allegations were reported.
The New York Times reported that in the six months leading up to March 2021, the show averaged at around 1.5million viewers, more than 1million fewer than the same period the previous year.
This meant a decrease of just over 42% of the show’s viewers, with Nielsen also noting that there was a 38% decrease in the programme’s core demographic of adult women under the age of 54.
The Ellen DeGeneres Show premiered in 2003 and is currently in its 18th season.
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