Comedian Adam Carolla claimed Ellen DeGeneres’ daytime talk show staff members were “scared to death” of her and “cowering” when he was a guest 15 years ago.
The former co-host of the “The Man Show” recalled his experience during an appearance on “After Party with Emily Dashinsky” Tuesday.
He said that a segment producer checked in with him before his on-air chat with DeGeneres to make sure he wasn’t going to talk about anything outside of what they agreed on beforehand — particularly eating meat as DeGeneres was a vegan at the time.
Carolla said the segment producer then nervously double-checked that he was not going to mention eating meat in their conversation.
‘I was like, ‘Oh, this guy’s scared to death. This guy’s scared,” he claimed.
“And he came back 20 minutes later right before I went out, and he’s like, “OK, but don’t talk about beef or meat or any[thing],”‘ Carolla said.
Carolla compared his experience on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” with other talk shows he had been on, noting that the atmosphere at Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Leno’s late-night shows was more laidback because the hosts were nice.
By contrast, he said that that both David Letterman and DeGeneres’ staff were in fear.
“Ellen’s show, people were scared — real scared,” he claimed.
Carolla said he later spoke to a writer who worked for both DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell. According to Carolla, the writer said DeGeneres was worse than O’Donnell, whom Carolla also claimed was extremely unpleasant to work with.
“I talked to someone who signed an NDA, so I won’t say his name, but he wrote for Ellen,” he said. “I just went, ‘How’s Ellen?’ And he said, ‘Worst person, uh, worst person — not worst person I’ve worked for, worst person I’ve ever met.’”
“She’s not a nice person at all,” he continued of DeGeneres.
“Everyone was scared of her, which means she’s mean,” he also said. “She’s not gonna be mean to me, I’m a guest on the show, right? I wouldn’t know it from my exchanges, I would know it from how her staff was cowering.”
DeGeneres’ rep didn’t immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Last September, DeGeneres — who now lives in England with her wife, Portia de Rossi — addressed being labeled as “mean” and being accused of leading a toxic workplace in her Netflix stand-up special, “For Your Approval.”
The former talk show host told an audience she is “proud” of who she’s become four years after the scandal and no longer cared about being called mean.
“If they like you, you’re in, and if they don’t, you’re out,” she said. “And I’ve spent an entire lifetime trying to make people happy and I’ve cared far too much what other people think of me. So, the thought of anyone thinking that I’m mean was devastating to me, and it consumed me for a long time.”
“After a lifetime of caring, I just can’t anymore. So I don’t,” she added.
