Ellen DeGeneres got tooken down because of wrongthink and thoughtcrimes!

"If you’re curious about how things got to this point, here’s a guide to how DeGeneres’s public persona went from the “new Queen of Nice” to even fellow celebrities calling her out for treating people “horribly.”

n January 2019, Kevin Hart appeared shortly after he stepped down as Academy Awards host, because of controversy over his previous homophobic tweets and jokes. DeGeneres, whose coming out as gay on her sitcom in 1997 was a groundbreaking moment for the LGBTQ community, said she believed in second chances and urged him to ignore the negative comments online; she also called the academy and asked them to rehire Hart. A backlash ensued from people offended by Hart’s homophobic comments and who didn’t appreciate DeGeneres dismissing them as “haters.”

She showed one tweet that said, “Ellen and George Bush makes me have faith in America again,” and the audience burst into applause. But many disagreed, summarized in one sample YouTube comment: “Ellen whitewashing the crimes of a war criminal as 'differences of opinion’ like not wearing fur actually has me lose faith in humanity.”

Yes, it has become somewhat of a Twitter meme that Johnson “brought down Ellen,” but this incident may have opened the floodgates. DeGeneres kicked off their interview by noting Johnson had recently turned 30: “How was the party? I wasn’t invited.”

Johnson, decidedly unamused, shot back: “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen. You were invited.” DeGeneres looked taken aback, as Johnson continued to say that she remembered DeGeneres had been offended she wasn’t invited to her 29th birthday, so the actress made sure to include her for her 30th. “I didn’t even know you wanted to be invited,” Johnson said.

Several weeks after the novel coronavirus pandemic shut down production in Hollywood, DeGeneres posted a YouTube video in which she compared being in quarantine to jail, a joke seen as especially tone-deaf given that she was sitting in her palatial California home while the spread of the virus in prisons was actually a dire situation. After backlash, her show’s official account deleted a tweet with the video, and the clip was made private on YouTube.

On July 16, BuzzFeed published a long story by Krystie Lee Yandoli, who interviewed former (and one current) “Ellen” show employees who alleged a toxic environment of “racism, fear, and intimidation.” As one former staffer said, “That ‘be kind’ bulls--- only happens when the cameras are on. It’s all for show.” Two weeks later, Yandoli published another story that reported that, according to dozens of people who worked behind the scenes at the show, “the office is a place where sexual harassment and misconduct by top executive producers runs rampant.”

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