Ellen DeGeneres will come back to host her show’s 18th season as investigations into allegations of a toxic workplace continue, reports suggest.
The daytime talk show has been hit with multiple claims from past and current staffers that producers perpetuated a toxic work environment that included bullying and racism.
Ellen is set to host the show – which has built a brand around the compassionate slogan ‘Be Kind’ – for its 18th season, despite widespread claims celebrities such as Sean Hayes, Kristen Bell, Melissa McCarthy and ‘the ultimate A-lister’ Jennifer Aniston were being considered to replace her.
Ellen DeGeneres (pictured) will come back to host her show’s 18th season as investigations into allegations of a toxic workplace continue
A source close to The Ellen DeGeneres Show said ‘no one is stepping in or taking over’ as the investigation into the claims continue, NBC News reports.
It comes shortly after reports that the show held a call with staffers on Monday to discuss how it will move forward amid the accusations.
Ellen was joined by executive producers Andy Lassner, Mary Connelly and Derek Westervelt and senior staff members and they are said to have ‘addressed’ the issues.
The daytime talk show has been hit with multiple claims from past and current staffers that producers perpetuated a toxic work environment that included bullying and racism
A team returned to work on the show Monday after a summer break and are all working from home amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the show’s spokesperson revealed.
Crewmembers have not started working yet. All work for upcoming seasons is being planned with coronavirus safety guidelines in place.
Early last week it was revealed that executives Telepictures and distributor Warner Bros. Television had sent a memo to staffers the previous week stating that they had asked WBTV-owner WarnerMedia’s employee relations group and a third party firm to interview current and former staffers about their experiences on set, Variety reported.
It comes shortly after reports that the show held a call with staffers on Monday to discuss how it will move forward amid the accusations
DeGeneres (on June 25) and the producers were said to have addressed claims made about a toxic workplace environment that included alleged bullying, racism and intimidation
The initial findings ‘indicated some deficiencies’, a WarnerMedia spokesperson told the news outlet.
On July 31, a Warner Bros. spokesperson told Variety in a statement that: ‘We have identified several staffing changes, along with appropriate measures to address the issues that have been raised, and are taking the first steps to implement them.’
The statement went to note that ‘Warner Bros. and Ellen DeGeneres are all committed to ensuring a workplace based on respect and inclusion. We are confident this course of action will lead us to the right way forward for the show.’
During the meeting, the producers told staffers that they wanted the talk show staff to ‘have fun at work,’ sources told Us Weekly.
Ellen is both host and an executive producer on the show but is not understood to be the investigators’ main focus, reports suggest.
The source also said that ‘they said a lot of [the claims are] true and a lot of it is not true’ during the discussion.
The producers allegedly told those on the call that they ‘are handling everything [and] things will be very different now.’
It’s unclear if any specifics about what is being changed were discussed during the meeting.
The source told the magazine that during the meeting some of the show staffers ‘voiced some concerns.’ Some of the producers were also ‘called out’ about past incidents.
Producers told the staff that ‘the show will go on’ and that they would continue to be employed and paid, noting that Ellen ‘is not giving up and the show will go on,’ according to the source.
The source categorized the call as being ‘a pep talk’ that left some staffers feeling better about the situation.
The call between producers and staffers comes after BuzzFeed News’ July 16 expose revealing claims made by one current and 10 former employees of Ellen’s talk show accusing Lassner, Connelly and executive producer Ed Glavin of bullying.
The current and former staffers said that they experienced racism, fear and intimidation while working on the long-running series and said that Ellen should have stepped in on their behalf.
The show then faced additional accusations about sexual misconduct, lobbed on July 30 in another BuzzFeed News article, in which dozens of men and women named show producers Kevin Leman, Glavin and Jonathan Norman with alleged incidents of sexual harassment, misconduct or assault.
Leman and Norman have denied the claims, while Glavin has not made a statement about them.
He is reported to be expected to step down from his executive producer role, however.
Last week, Ellen sent a memo to staff apologizing to them and acknowledging that the workplace culture didn’t reflect the values that she set out to display when she started the talk show 17 years ago.
‘On day one of our show, I told everyone in our first meeting that “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” would be a place of happiness — no one would ever raise their voice, and everyone would be treated with respect. Obviously, something changed, and I am disappointed to learn that this has not been the case,’ DeGeneres wrote in the memo obtained by Variety.
She went on to say that following the initial accusations made in the first BuzzFeed article, Warner Bros. and the producers ‘immediately began an internal investigation and we are taking steps, together, to correct the issues.
‘As we’ve grown exponentially, I’ve not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I’d want them done. Clearly some didn’t. That will now change and I’m committed to ensuring this does not happen again,’ Ellen wrote.
An Us Weekly source told the magazine that Ellen ‘has never been afraid to fire anyone who is bad’ and that if she chose to leave the talk show, she ‘has enough money to never work again.’
The show’s executive producers issued a joint statement to BuzzFeed when the allegations were first put forward.
Executive Producers of the Ellen DeGeneres Show Ed Glavin (left), Mary Connelly (center) and Andy Lassner (right) have been accused of fostering a hostile work environment
On the call, Ellen, Lassner, Connelly and executive producer Derek Westervelt supposedly said they wanted the talk show staff to ‘have fun at work.’ A scene from an old Ellen episode
‘Over the course of nearly two decades, 3,000 episodes, and employing over 1,000 staff members, we have strived to create an open, safe and inclusive work environment,’ read the announcement written by Glavin, Connelly and Lassner.
‘We are truly heartbroken and sorry to learn that even one person in our production family has had a negative experience, it’s not who we are and not who we strive to be, and not the mission Ellen has set for us.’
‘For the record, the day to day responsibility of the Ellen show is completely on us. We take all of this very seriously and we realize, as many in the world are learning, that we need to do better, are committed to do better, and we will do better,’ the statement added.