Ellen DeGeneres may have carved out a reputation of being the nicest person in Hollywood, but that seems to be nothing more than a facade thanks to people spilling some scalding hot tea. Now it seems like Ellen DeGeneres can’t even fall back on her proven comedic chops because her attempts at making her talk show at home has resulted in nothing more than cringe and tone-deaf jokes about quarantine and jail.
On the topic of celebs, the GOAT team talk about those who are using their platform to spread positivity on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
Following in the footsteps of other talk show hosts, Ellen decided to record her show from home after an enforced three week hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic and things… didn’t go so well.
The thing with The Ellen DeGeneres Show is that it requires a lot of bells, whistles, gimmicks, adoring fans, laughter, and music for it to work. When you take away all those things, what you’re left with is a cringe-inducing experience where her disdain is so palpable that the whole “Ellen DeGeneres is mean” thing is in plain view.
It also doesn’t help that she kicked off the first home edition of The Ellen DeGeneres Show with a god awful joke comparing home quarantine to jail:
“One thing I’ve learned from being in quarantine is that … this is like being in jail. Mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 10 days and everyone in here is gay.”
Yes, Ellen DeGeneres, quarantining at home is exactly like jail, aside from a few small things like how you’re in isolation in a massive $27 million Hollywood mansion while people in jail don’t even have access to soap, and how you’re able to practice social distancing in comfort while coronavirus is a very serious problem in jails. But other than those little details, quarantining at home is totally like jail.
Making fun of America’s crumbling justice system while throwing fuel on the tired stereotype of criminals in jail being gay during these trying times certainly ranks up there as some of the dumbest things a celebrity has done while in isolation.
Unsurprisingly, people took Ellen to task for it.
To be fair to Ellen, she likely has an entire writer’s room crafting jokes for her on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and doing things in a DIY fashion from home does mean low quality material can slip through the cracks.
For what it’s worth, Ellen did give massive props to all the hard working healthcare workers out there who have had to put up with a heap of crap during this pandemic, so that’s, uh, something at least.
Ellen has yet to respond to the backlash, though we shouldn’t expect her to given her past history of sweeping things under the rug. One thing’s for sure though, this whole thing is certainly going to keep that “Ellen DeGeneres is mean” fire going for a while yet.
At the way Ellen DeGeneres is going, she might as well go sing a cover of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ with Gal Gadot because that’s somehow less cringey and tone-deaf than what she’s doing on her home-made talk show.
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