Ellen DeGeneres has insisted she's not ending her daytime talk show over last year's toxic workplace scandal.
Last summer, anonymous former The Ellen DeGeneres Show employees made allegations of a toxic workplace and accused executive producers of harassment, sparking an internal investigation which led to the dismissal of three executives. Ellen apologised to her staff at the time and once again when her show resumed for its 18th season in September.
This week, it was revealed that the show, which has been on air since 2003, was coming to an end in 2022 after 19 seasons, leading many to wonder if the decision was a result of the scandal last year.
However, in a interview with Today host Savannah Guthrie, Ellen insisted that wasn't the case.
"If it was why I was quitting, I would have not come back this year," she said. "I really did think about not coming back. It was devastating. I am a kind person. I am a person who likes to make people happy. I just kept saying to (wife) Portia (de Rossi) if I was a fan of somebody, and even though I loved them, I would think there must be some truth to it because it is not stopping. And then right on the heels of that I hear that there is a toxic work environment, which I had no idea, never saw anything that would even point to that."
And she continued to insist she had no knowledge about an allegedly toxic work environment and was blindsided by the claims.
"I don't know how I could have known when there's 255 employees here and there are a lot of different buildings, unless I literally stay here until the last person goes home at night," she stated. "It is my name on the show, so clearly it affects me and I have to be the one to stand up and say, 'This can't be tolerated.' But I do wish someone would have come to me and said, 'Hey, something's going on that you should know about.'"
When Savannah asked the 63-year-old if she felt she was being "cancelled," the host said she felt the criticism was "orchestrated".
"I really didn't understand it. I still don't understand it," she confessed. "It was too orchestrated. It was too coordinated."
She later added that, as a woman, she found the negative coverage "very misogynistic" and admitted it "took a toll" on her.
