Ashton Kutcher is the latest celebrity to speak out, saying DeGeneres has only ever treated him and his team with “respect and kindness”.
I haven’t spoken with @TheEllenShow and can only speak from my own experience. She & her team have only treated me & my team w/ respect & kindness. She never pandered to celebrity which I always saw as a refreshing honesty. When things aren’t right she handles it and fixes.
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) August 5, 2020
Meanwhile, Katy Perry has also posted to Twitter in defence of the talkshow host, writing that she has “only ever had positive takeaways from my time with Ellen”.
1/2 I know I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience besides my own but I want to acknowledge that I have only ever had positive takeaways from my time with Ellen & on the @theellenshow. I think we all have witnessed the light & continual fight for equality that she has brought
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) August 4, 2020
Kevin Hart was one of the first high-profile people to publicly defend DeGeneres, calling her “one of the dopest people on the f***ing planet”.
It’s crazy to see my friend go thru what she’s going thru publicly. I have known Ellen for years and I can honestly say that she’s one of the dopest people on the fucking planet. She has treated my family and my team… https://t.co/oCTOc4vJXn
— Kevin Hart (@KevinHart4real) August 4, 2020
Diane Keaton, Jay Leno and Alec Baldwin are also among those who have shown their support for the comedian.
It comes amid an internal investigation into complaints of workplace problems on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and numerous unflattering reports about working conditions.
In a report by BuzzFeed, 10 former employees and a current worker accused the show’s three executive producers Ed Glavin, Mary Connelly and Andy Lassner, of “bullying”.
This week, The Ellen DeGeneres Show‘s former DJ, Tony Okungbowa, broke his silence about the allegations, saying he experienced the “toxicity”.
Most recently, one of Ellen’s former producers, Hedda Muskat, gave a number of interviews discussing the culture on set.
Muskat, who worked on the first season of the show in 2003 before being fired, claimed to Seven Network’s Sunrise that Glavin would be verbally abusive to staff members and that DeGeneres would “laugh” in response.
“I was privy in meetings while he [Glavin] went off at people with a vein bulging in his neck … she [Ellen] would turn around, laugh and say that ‘Every production needs their dog,’” Muskat said.
Australian radio stars Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson defended DeGeneres on their show regarding Muskat’s accusations.
“I see nothing wrong with that. Every production does need its dog. You can’t be all sitting around holding hands, patting each other on the back all the time,” Sandilands said.
Henderson agreed, saying she was ‘with Kyle on that’.
“It is like that, it is serious, and it’s a lot of hard work and it’s stressful for a lot of people and it would be stressful for Ellen and the producers particularly,” she said.
“Sometimes they do have to be the bad guy.”