‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’: All the celebrities Ellen “bullied”

In case you missed it, lately, Ellen DeGeneres – the epitome of kindness – has been making headlines for all the awful, off-brand things she’s done in the past. After allegations of her misbehavior with staff, maltreatment of guests, and hypocrisy in preaching kindness surfaced earlier this year, she’s been constantly firefighting. 

Fans have now been revisiting old interviews & tracking all the times she acted like a bully towards her celebrity guests. Here’s a quick look at a few such instances.

Sofia Vergara

The allegations of a toxic workplace that came up against The Ellen DeGeneres Show included racism & bullying. Fans are digging up old graves to prove this point, rewinding all the way back to 2010 when Sofia Vergara visited the show.

Ellen thought it’d be fun to talk about Vergara’s thick Columbian accent. She mockingly mentions how Vergara’s English has somehow gotten worse with time, instead of better. She then went ahead to question if Vergara is even fluent in the language.

This wasn’t the first time Ellen targeted someone’s accent, a marker of their cultural identity. In a previous visit by Vergara, she remarked, “I shouldn’t judge because I think it would be hard to learn a new language entirely . . . but can you get rid of the accent?”

Her remarks may seem nonchalant to the casual viewer, but mocking someone’s accent is actually quite offensive as it perpetuates negative stereotypes & can create feelings of marginalization. 

Mariah Carey

Here’s a name that needs no introduction. Mariah Carey visited The Ellen DeGeneres Show back in 2008, when rumors were abuzz that she & her then-husband Nick Cannon were expecting their first child. As it goes, women don’t like to make this information public in their first trimester, or, in fact, until they feel comfortable doing so. 

However, DeGeneres came on cunning to Carey on the show. In a bid to break the news on her show & grab some eyeballs & ratings, she obstinately kept pressuring Carey to confirm the veracity of the rumor. Her annoying & petty antics reached a new low when she brought in champagne glasses & almost forced Carey to make a choice: either drink or admit to being pregnant. 

Carey tried to maintain a dignified environment & pretended to sip, but DeGeneres was reeling with joy because she’d made the point she wanted to. The story gets even worse if that’s possible. Later, Carey miscarried. DeGeneres made a whole show out of personal information that could have saved Carey a lot of public attention at a time when she was clearly grieving. 

Selena Gomez

The Ellen DeGeneres Show spares no one, not even the young ones. When Selena Gomez visited the show as a guest, rumors were floating about her relationship with Justin Bieber. We all know that ended, but it was still new at that point in time. Gomez was trying to deny & suppress all such rumors in 2010. 

DeGeneres jumped at the opportunity, commenting, “So, you’re a busy girl. You’ve got a CD out, you’ve got a clothing line, and you’re an ambassador. I don’t know how you have time to date Justin Bieber.” Gomez clarified with a lot of shock, “He’s little! No, he’s like my little brother. That’s weird to me.”

She confirmed that they were hanging out together. That’s all the hook DeGeneres needed to squeeze out of her celebrity guest to make her uncomfortable. The discomfort didn’t stop with this encounter. 

The next time when the pop star returned to the show & confirmed her romance with Bieber, DeGeneres chose to bring that up – pretending it all in good humor, of course – and repeatedly chose to humiliate her.

In her trademark bully voice, Ellen went, “He’s like your little brother? What do you have to say now?” If you ask us, this is downright distasteful.

Justin Beiber

There was also a time when Justin Bieber was at the receiving end of this humiliation, too. During his visit to The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2015, she brought up a blurred nude paparazzi shot of the singer from his vacation in Bora Bora. 

And then like the nagging neighborhood gossipmonger, she asked him if this was his girlfriend, “You just brought a friend to Bora Bora? And you’re just naked with your friend?” Very crass of you, Ellen.