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<\/p>\n Email Link<\/p>\n The Cotswolds, England \n Time does not move quickly here. Union Jacks flap gently in the breeze; a golden slither of evening sun drapes a row of cottages; a red postbox, still bearing the initials of the late Queen, stands outside a village church, bathed in the fading light.\n <\/p>\n \n When you think of the English countryside, this is where you think of. This idyllic pocket of rolling hills and picturesque villages, two hours west of London, has been an affluent outpost for retired prime ministers and old-money elites for centuries.\n <\/p>\n \n But there\u2019s a new crowd now. They\u2019re called, with mild derision, the \u201cChippie set\u201d \u2013 a posse of well-known figures who live around the affluent village of Chipping Norton, and are rarely seen by neighbors except when in transit between a growing number of top-end resorts and restaurants.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThey only go there \u2013 they really don\u2019t come out,\u201d Simon Finch, who runs a pub in Bloxham, told CNN on a recent warm afternoon.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThey leave their chauffeurs hanging around while they eat, (in) cars that are twelve feet long,\u201d Liz, another local who declined to give her last name, complained. \u201cYou begin to feel (the area) doesn\u2019t belong to you anymore.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n And the Chippie set has a notable new member. On a vast country estate behind an imposing timber gate, Ellen DeGeneres is settling into a new phase of her life \u2013 and mulling her next move.\n <\/p>\n \n After welcoming A-Listers to her TV studio set in Burbank, California, for two decades, DeGeneres now raises chickens, battles her riding mower and ushers wandering sheep from her open-plan living room. She\u2019s been spotted taking walks and having a drink in her local pub, The Duck on the Pond.\n <\/p>\n \n But while Finch and DeGeneres are neighbors near the village of South Newington, they live in different worlds. DeGeneres\u2019 spectacular fall from grace in 2020, amid reports of a toxic workplace at her show, made her the signature scalp of a pandemic-era eruption in cancel culture. For decades, the American public had been on first-name terms with Ellen; now she lives in splendid isolation in this charming nook of the English countryside, having told an audience last year she was \u201ckicked out of show business.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The \u201cBe kind to one another\u201d lady, whose coming out in the 1990s was a milestone for the visibility of LGBTQ+ people, is a Rorschach test for many Americans.\n <\/p>\n \n To DeGeneres\u2019 supporters, she\u2019s a pioneer who fell victim to a bloodthirsty online horde, taking the fall for a ruthless culture that is commonplace in the television industry and had little to do with her personally. To her critics, she epitomizes the dangerous imbalance of power in Hollywood and the inauthenticity of celebrity personas: a television star who built her brand on everything she was not and duped the viewing public in the process.\n <\/p>\n \n Now, five years after the collapse of her public image, it might be time to revisit DeGeneres\u2019 case. Was her cancellation a product of a fleeting era when people spoke earnestly about \u201csafe spaces\u201d and \u201cmicroaggressions\u201d \u2013 a time when the left, not the right, was doing the canceling?\n <\/p>\n \n The zeitgeist remains an unforgiving place for hypocritical celebrities, but it\u2019s difficult to imagine someone getting canceled for being a tough boss in 2025. Lizzo, Jimmy Fallon and Kelly Clarkson,<\/a> who faced similar accusations that their tours and shows were toxic environments, have weathered the fallout. Lizzo denied those claims, while Fallon and Clarkson apologized to staff, and their shows remain on the air.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe is tough. She demands excellence from everyone around her.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u2014Gil Junger, who directed episodes of “Ellen”\n <\/p>\n \n Were we all too hard on Ellen? Those who have worked with the star over the past several decades fall on radically different sides of that question. DeGeneres declined to be interviewed for this story, but several of her ex-colleagues spoke to CNN. Few have no opinion of her anymore; stances have hardened in hindsight.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAfter 19 seasons, more than 3200 shows, and over 1000 employees, it is not unreasonable to expect that a small handful of people may have had a negative experience while working there,\u201d a source close to DeGeneres and her talk show told CNN. \u201cThat is just common sense.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPeople are terrified to speak up to or disagree with the star of the show,\u201d said Gil Junger, who directed dozens of episodes of DeGeneres\u2019 1990s sitcom \u201cEllen,\u201d including the seminal edition in which her character came out as gay.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe\u2019s the most skilled comedic actress I\u2019ve ever worked with,\u201d Junger told CNN about DeGeneres. \u201cBut she is tough. She demands excellence from everyone around her.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Junger said the controversy that hastened the demise of DeGeneres\u2019 long-running talk show was unsurprising in a culture where \u201cpeople all of a sudden realize you can\u2019t do whatever the f**k you want to do just because you\u2019re the boss.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But, he added: \u201cMaybe the pendulum has swung a little too far.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s sunny, but this isn\u2019t Los Angeles: Sunshine means little around here. Rain is coming, penciled in for an hour or two from now, and a harsh British wind is flinging leaves off branches and cloaking the countryside with something that smells dungy and damp.\n <\/p>\n \n These are the afternoons that Finch has to contend with. He\u2019s having a cigarette outside his pub: the proper, old fashioned kind of British establishment threatened with extinction.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s probably twice as many people here as there were in the \u201880s,\u201d he says, gesturing down a beautiful high street. But none of them are inside his pub; they\u2019ve opted instead for an expensive gastropub down the street, where DeGeneres and her wife, actor Portia de Rossi, were recently seen with singer Robbie Williams. An increasing number of American figures \u2013 from Kourtney Kardashian to Vice President JD Vance \u2013 chose the Cotswolds for vacations this summer.\n <\/p>\n \n At 67, DeGeneres has enjoyed adapting to a slower pace of life, but she isn\u2019t retired, the source close to her told CNN. A year after a Netflix comedy special that was billed as the last word on her topsy-turvy career, she\u2019s taking meetings with writers and producers, the source said, and keeping her options open. Earlier this month, DeGeneres announced a series of \u201cIn Conversation\u201d events in five British cities \u2013 a mini-tour that could serve as a dry run for a TV comeback.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cEverything here is just better,\u201d DeGeneres told a crowd<\/a> at a public event in nearby Cheltenham this summer. \u201cThe way animals are treated. People are polite. I just love it here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Her old and new surroundings make for a jarring split-screen. On the same day that DeGeneres interviewed Anne Hathaway in 2019, for example, her future parish councilors in South Newington gathered to discuss<\/a> whether putting the village Christmas tree in a tub would make it look taller. As she chatted up Ted Danson on one of her final episodes in 2022, councilors discussed<\/a> \u201ca significant amount of mud\u201d that had built up near the woods.\n <\/p>\n \n The couple\u2019s decision to relocate was cemented after Donald Trump won re-election in 2024, DeGeneres said<\/a>. She interviewed Trump, then the host of \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d on her show in 2004 but has supported Democratic candidates in several elections since.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis,\u201d DeGeneres said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re like: \u2018We\u2019re staying here.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Instagram photos and videos give her fans a glimpse into her new life. She bumped into members of a Formula 1 team while in the popular Falkland Arms pub. De Rossi, she wrote last month, is \u201cliving her dream riding her horse through the English countryside and into the village.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Already, the pair have moved to a second English home, relocating from a traditional Cotswolds house to a striking minimalist mansion. The 100-acre property<\/a> boasts a pool, two lakes, a wildflower meadow and a modern, glassy farmhouse with floor-to-ceiling views of the surrounding fields.\n <\/p>\n \n Their new house<\/a> \u2013 a hulking slab of timber, concrete and glass seemingly dropped from another world \u2013 hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed. \u201cIt\u2019s not very Cotswolds,\u201d Liz told CNN in Charlbury. \u201cIt actually looks like it landed from Mars. Or from LA.\u201d Other locals described the house as \u201chorrific,\u201d a \u201cmonstrosity,\u201d and something akin to a \u201cBond villain\u2019s lair.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n And almost a year after resettling here, DeGeneres herself is still the source of gossip. Though she\u2019s never carried the same cultural importance in the UK, she\u2019s a recognizable figure here. Talk of her arrival \u201chas been everywhere,\u201d 23-year-old local Eden Crystal, who used to watch DeGeneres\u2019 talk show on her phone, told CNN. \u201cWhen you think of really famous Americans, you think of Ellen DeGeneres.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n DeGeneres always wanted it to be that way. \u201cI wanted to have money, I wanted to be special, I wanted people to like me, I wanted to be famous,\u201d she told W Magazine<\/a> in 2007.\n <\/p>\n \n As a child, the path to fame felt remote. The future television personality was born in Metairie, Louisiana, in a Christian Science household, to a father who \u201cwas scared of everything,\u201d she told Michelle Obama in a podcast interview in 2023. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to become that person.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n DeGeneres told David Letterman<\/a> in 2018 that she had been sexually assaulted by her mother\u2019s then-husband, who is now dead, when she was 15 or 16. At the age of 20, her girlfriend was killed in a car accident, she told Dax Shepard on his podcast the same year.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe was demanding, but she delivered.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u2014Gil Junger\n <\/p>\n \n But DeGeneres found an escape: comedy. On the Los Angeles circuit, and then on television, including a career-making appearance on \u201cThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,\u201d she showed the first glimpses of an easy charm that would ultimately earn her a sitcom. That show, \u201cThese Friends of Mine,\u201d was quickly renamed \u201cEllen\u201d after she emerged as its central draw.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe could literally turn just about anything into comedic brilliance,\u201d said Junger, one of the show\u2019s directors.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI used to hang out during those days with Robin Williams, and there was a familiarity between their minds,\u201d he said. \u201cHer ability to just improvise on the spot and make up really funny stuff was extraordinary to watch.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But DeGeneres was single-minded about her career trajectory \u2013 and there was a sharp edge to her rise, according to some who worked on the series.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe can be pretty brutal,\u201d Junger told CNN. \u201cShe would fire people fairly often, actors on the show \u2013 if they weren\u2019t cutting it, if they weren\u2019t great, \u2018Boom, get rid of them,\u2019\u201d he recalled. \u201cShe was also tough on the scripts \u2013 if the script wasn\u2019t right, she\u2019d say no, and they\u2019d have to rewrite the whole script.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cShe was demanding, but she delivered,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n \n For others who worked on the show, the experience became unbearable.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt was not fun to work with her,\u201d Holly Fulger, a member of the show\u2019s original cast, told CNN. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with some really famous stars, and, but nobody was ever like that,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was an incredibly difficult time for me, being on that show \u2013 it kind of made me want to quit acting.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHow can someone that awful be that famous for how nice she is?\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u2014Holly Fulger, an actor who worked with DeGeneres\n <\/p>\n \n Fulger felt the focus of the show shifting from an ensemble towards its breakout star. She told CNN she was told by producers to dye her hair after DeGeneres remarked to her that she\u2019d been mistaken for Fulger at an airport. She said jokes that got big laughs at the table read were cut if they didn\u2019t highlight DeGeneres. At one point, Fulger says, DeGeneres asked the cast to tell Disney, which owned the show, that they were unhappy with the scripts.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt was like watching an ego,\u201d Fulger said. \u201cEllen wanted her own show, she wanted to be featured in every episode.\u201d A representative for DeGeneres declined to comment when contacted by CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n DeGeneres\u2019 career climb rankled Fulger, who was let go from the series, along with co-star Maggie Wheeler, when it was retooled after its first year on the air. Fulger now runs a non-profit<\/a> in Cleveland.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt just rocks your world. You grow up and you think: People are good \u2026 how can someone that awful be that famous for how nice she is?\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But when describing DeGeneres\u2019 \u201cpure, straight-up ambition,\u201d Fulger added: \u201cWhen you think about it, is that bad? That\u2019s how she got to be so famous, and in a world like Hollywood, I think you need to be that way.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n DeGeneres\u2019 fame soared, but a collision was coming. The cultural landscape of the 1990s had few prominent LGBTQ+ figures, and the sitcom star was keeping a part of herself hidden from public view.\n <\/p>\n \n That changed with a historic Time magazine profile in 1997, the cover of which featured a smiling DeGeneres and the headline: \u201cYep, I\u2019m Gay.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The ensuing episode of her ABC show \u2013 on which her character also comes out \u2013 was a monumental one. \u201cI knew that it was an incredibly big deal while we were doing it,\u201d said Junger.\n <\/p>\n \n It won plenty of praise. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said at the time that DeGeneres had \u201cmade a profound and remarkable impact on our society.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPeople called me and screamed at me that I was going to hell.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u2014Gil Junger\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhat an incredible burden it was to bear,\u201d President Barack Obama said nearly two decades later as he awarded DeGeneres the Presidential Medal of Freedom. \u201cTo risk your career like that. People don\u2019t do that often.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n But much of America\u2019s socially conservative wing was not ready.\n <\/p>\n \n Junger said people left threatening messages on the door of DeGeneres\u2019 home at night, reading: \u201c\u2018You better never get near my daughters. You\u2019re disgusting.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI have no idea how they got my number, but a few people called me and screamed at me that I was going to hell,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n \n And once the initial praise for the episode had worn off, so too did the industry\u2019s appetite for an openly gay female star. \u201cThe complaint from ABC was \u2018it was too gay,\u2019\u201d Junger recalled. \u201cToo many gay storylines.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The network never cited the character\u2019s coming out as the reason for the show\u2019s cancellation, but its chairman Stuart Bloomberg said at the time, according<\/a> to The Guardian, that \u201cas the show became more politicized and issue-oriented, it became less funny.\u201d CNN reached out to ABC for comment.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt hurt my feelings \u2013 I was getting jokes made at my expense on every late-night show,\u201d DeGeneres told Shepard in her 2018 podcast appearance. \u201cI was really depressed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The network placed a \u201cparental discretion\u201d advisory before subsequent episodes aired, and Ellen\u2019s first landmark show, a troubled but historic project, was cancelled the next year.\n <\/p>\n \n For a few years, it seemed DeGeneres would become a culturally significant footnote in entertainment history. Her second attempt at a sitcom, \u201cThe Ellen Show,\u201d was short-lived, airing just 13 episodes before being cancelled in 2002.\n <\/p>\n \n But DeGeneres never stopped searching for her next project.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAs we were closing up the offices, I submitted some material I had written to Ellen,\u201d said Jeff Bye, a former comedy writer.\n <\/p>\n \n He said he had crossed paths with the actress nine years earlier outside a store in Laurel Canyon, pitched her some material, and was kept in DeGeneres\u2019 orbit ever since. Days later, DeGeneres left a message on his answering machine: His material was good. She wanted to use some of it in her next book and pay for him for it. And she was preparing to host a daytime talk show. Would he want to join the writing staff?\n <\/p>\n \n The ensuing talk show \u2013 \u201cThe Ellen DeGeneres Show\u201d \u2013 premiered in 2003. It was the third flagship television project to bear Ellen\u2019s name, and the one that stuck. For two decades it became daytime comfort viewing for tens of millions of Americans. Famous faces would dance their way toward the seat next to DeGeneres or play pranks on the Warner Bros. lot to raucous studio applause.\n <\/p>\n \n But Bye ultimately felt let down \u2013 he was never offered a job on the show. \u201cWhen I finally got Ellen on the phone, she explained those decisions were up to the producers and not her,\u201d he said. \u201cI was thinking: \u201cWell the name of the show is \u2018Ellen\u2019. So one would think she could override that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The rise of social media would eventually help facilitate DeGeneres\u2019 downfall. But initially it gave the show another, direct avenue into households, and made-for-YouTube moments became its calling card.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe first five years, she was extremely hands-on,\u201d a longtime senior member of the show\u2019s crew told CNN. But once the show found its rhythm, DeGeneres stepped back, the person said, throwing her time to other projects. She twice hosted the Oscars, most memorably in 2014 when a selfie she took alongside Brad Pitt, Bradley Cooper, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence and other stars was retweeted more than 2 million times and became a cultural time capsule<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Stepping back from a demanding job, however, was a luxury her show\u2019s staff said they didn\u2019t have.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI was drinking the Kool-Aid a little bit more back then: I couldn\u2019t admit it was toxic,\u201d an employee who continued to work with DeGeneres on subsequent projects told CNN. \u201cNow I can look back and say, yes, (it was) probably a little toxic.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Staffers were told their doctor appointments must be pushed to days when the show wasn\u2019t airing, and laptops were delivered to their homes if people were too sick to come in, the employee said. Such mandates were set by producers and managers, and it was unlikely DeGeneres knew about them, the employee added.\n <\/p>\n \n A representative for DeGeneres declined to comment. A statement from WarnerMedia, released at the time, stated that Warner Bros took the \u201callegations around the show\u2019s workplace culture very seriously.\u201d They said they made changes to ensure \u201ca workplace based on respect and inclusion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cBy the end of the show she was incredibly wealthy,\u201d the former senior member of her crew told CNN. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s hard to find people you trust and people who would give you good advice.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Perhaps this is why Ellen said she never knew what was happening behind the scenes of a show that bore her face and name, and why many believe she never fully took ownership for the scandal.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cYou get in this bubble, where people don\u2019t necessarily tell you what you need to hear,\u201d the crew member said. \u201cI wish someone had been able to tell her what she needed to hear,\u201d they added. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think that person exists.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Three of \u201cThe Ellen DeGeneres Show\u201d\u2019s top producers <\/a>\u201cparted ways\u201d with the show in August 2020 after the unflattering media reports and an internal investigation by Warner Bros. Television. (CNN and Warner Bros. Television are owned by the same parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI wish someone had been able to tell her what she needed to hear \u2026 but I don\u2019t think that person exists\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u2014a former staffer on DeGeneres’ talk show\n <\/p>\n \n The saga made DeGeneres one of the first victims of public scorn during the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic. Celebrities aren\u2019t known for eating their own, and some rushed to her defense, while others kept silent.\n <\/p>\n \n But those who watched DeGeneres\u2019 rise were stunned by the speed of her fall. \u201cIt was so strong and swift,\u201d Junger said of the backlash that derailed her career at the same moment a pandemic had stopped the world. It was \u201chorrible timing,\u201d he said, and a \u201cperfect storm\u201d that delivered a public target for people\u2019s frustrations when the gap between the wealthy and everyone else seemed especially stark.\n <\/p>\n \n Or perhaps, it was justice: a rare case in which a power imbalance was flipped on its architect.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt did expose toxic workplaces,\u201d her former co-star Fulger told CNN. \u201cWhen you get somebody that famous, with that kind of ego, there\u2019s this tendency to protect that person.\u201d People were \u201cscared\u201d to challenge her, Fulger suggested \u2014 until suddenly they weren\u2019t.\n <\/p>\n \n Five years ago, as outrage painted every controversy in stark black-and-white, a headline dubbed<\/a> DeGeneres \u201cone of the biggest villains of 2020.\u201d But maybe the truth was more nuanced. Maybe she was a villain and a hero \u2013 a perpetrator and a victim \u2013 all at once.\n <\/p>\n \n Years later, many of the show\u2019s staff remain fiercely defensive of DeGeneres, describing her as driven and challenging but fair. The workplace environment on her show became breakneck and pressurized in her name, but not at her direction, they said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI feel bad because at the end of the day, she\u2019s a human and I genuinely think she wanted to do good in this world,\u201d said the former employee who described the show\u2019s working environment as toxic. \u201cThe world is so cruel.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cBut she\u2019s crying in a mansion,\u201d they added.\n <\/p>\n
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