In 2020 during the pandemic, Ellen DeGeneres faced serious backlash when allegations about The Ellen Show fostering a toxic work environment began to surface, leading to a full investigation into the treatment of her employees and guests.
The show has since been canceled and DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, have moved to the U.K. in response to Donald Trump being elected for a second term, but every once in a while, clips from the past resurface—and viewers are reminded of why they wanted to see the show canceled.
The latest in the stream of resurfaced clips features singer Céline Dion visiting the show in 2005.
At the beginning of the clip, Dion makes a joke about herself, admitting to her lack of knowledge and involvement when it comes to politics.
DeGeneres quickly reacted to this statement, insinuating that even though Dion wasn't busy keeping up on politics, she must have been keeping herself busy with something, because it obviously wasn't her son.
DeGeneres quipped:
"It seems like you're busy with something, because you're forgetting to cut your son's hair."
The audience lightly laughed, and Dion offered a flippant "Yeah, right," before DeGeneres continued to press the issue:
"Look at him! He is beautiful. But look at his hair! When are you gonna cut that hair?"
The audience in the background could be heard making a mix of laughs and groans, and Dion challenged:
"Do you have a problem with that?"
DeGeneres continued:
"No, I don't have a problem! That is some long hair!"
The photo that DeGeneres referenced is this one, featuring the family of three, including six-year-old René-Charles rocking gorgeous, long locks.
TheEllenShow/YouTube
Dion looked at the screen, featuring the picture of her son, before turning to DeGeneres:
"I know, I have to say, it's amazing, right? Some people shave the head of their children, and people say, 'Oh, isn't that terrible?'"
"Well, I don't even cut my son's hair, and they say, 'Ohhh my god, when is she gonna cut her son's hair?'"
"Whatever I will do, I won't please everyone."
But then Dion turned to the audience and assured them that she would please her son.
"But something that I can reassure to every mother here, about the long hair. Do you know that René-Charles makes his own decisions most of the time?"
"My son made his decision about this. I've asked him 25 times, if not five million times, 'Do you want Mommy to open your face a little bit? Do you want me to open your eyes, because you have beautiful eyes? Do you want me to just trim? Just trim a little bit?'"
"And, no. When he's ready, I'll cut it."
"And when I cut it, they will say, 'Oh, you know what? It's a little too short!'"
DeGeneres then quickly redirected the conversation to Dion's latest album at the time.
You can see the clip here:
- YouTubeyoutu.be
The old clip gained traction on the "Fauxmoi" subReddit, where Redditor voguediaries shared the clip and cited Dion as "unimpressed" by DeGeneres' line of questioning.
The consensus was that the clip did not age well and was a solid example of how guests had been treated by DeGeneres, leading to the show's eventual cancellation.
Some were alarmed by just how badly the interaction aged.
"I love how badly some of these Ellen clips have aged. She was viewed as a 'fun' and 'happy' place to go promote things, and instead, some people got rude, invasive questions masked under humor, and some people she literally scared the daylights out of with her 'surprises.'"
"If someone has to humiliate another person to make a joke, they aren't very funny." - PeaUpbeat3732
"I never watched her show, but I had seen clips of her doing 'silly' things. I was home really sick one day, and my mom had the show on, and after watching it for a few minutes, I finally said to my mom, 'Do you actually like her? She is a real [c-word] to people.'"
"My mom was a little surprised and was like, 'I guess. She's funny.'"
"About a month later, we were talking and she said something about the fact that ever since I brought it up, she noticed how rude she was." - NSE_TNT89
"I never liked her… she seemed rude to me, and honestly, I wasn’t shocked to find out she treated her staff so badly."
"In 2021, I had a lash client who worked charter yachts as her second job, she told me she was working a charter that Ellen would be on, and they were all told not to they must not make eye contact with her. Even when serving her."
"She’s a terrible representation of women in comedy, among other things." - bumbledbeez
"I never understood Ellen’s appeal. She was always woefully inept at being a talk show host."
"I’d tune in when she had a guest I liked and was always left confused and disappointed by her ‘style’ which seemed to be a combination of mild to complete lack of interest, outright mockery, and enjoying her own jokes more than anything else." - Naive-Inside-2904
"It's also pretty clear from this video that she was NOT listening to Celine AT ALL! She keeps going, 'Uh huh, uh huh,' and doesn't even comment on anything she's saying. Then she just goes, 'So let's talk about the album.'"
"These types of interviewers are the f**king worse; they don't build a rapport at all, they just want to listen to themselves."
"No self-awareness. No apology when Celine called her out. So glad she's off the air now." - finntana
Others agreed and were also concerned by DeGeneres' ironic fixation on someone else's hair.
"It's just so funny to me that a woman famed for having short hair was complaining about a boy having long hair." - tar-luthien
"I’m surprised Ellen would be so narrow-minded. Part of me wonders if she was trying to start some s**t that the little boy is gay." - shame-the-devil
"It’s odd. It feels like she’s alluding to something, something about gender roles and how 'boys shouldn’t have long hair.' Antiquated at best." - ArnoldPalmerAlertBU
"How is his hair different than hers? Both are 'not the norm' to extreme conservatives, so who effing cares? Actually, who effing cares anyway?! No one should! It's hair! It's expression! It's fine!" - ExpensiveWords4u
"So wild to think of them being like, 'So what do we want to ask one of the greatest singers of all time? Have we considered undermining her parenting and belittling her child?'" - dreamslikedeserts
Though commenting on people's haircuts, from the length to the style to the color, used to be very common, the pressure for people to wear a certain hairstyle based on their age and gender has become antiquated.
Ironically, with Ellen DeGeneres being bullied over the years for her short, blonde, and at times spiky hair, this is a conversation she should have known to stay away from, even if she was only trying to get a few laughs.
