Ellen DeGeneres is being called out for her past behavior by former Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky, and a source exclusively tells Life & Style the whole thing is stressing the former talk show host out to no end as she wonders if she’ll ever find any respite from her catastrophic career implosion even after fleeing to the U.K.
“Ellen can’t believe that people are still coming after her, it feels like a nightmare that just won’t end,” the insider says of the most recent reminder of the former host’s alleged mistreatment of her employees.
On a January episode of Kaitlyn Bristowe‘s “Off the Vine” podcast, Ali, 40, who starred on the sixth season of The Bachelorette following her appearance as a contestant on The Bachelor, fanned the nearly-dead embers of outrage directed at the comedian, 66.
“She made me feel pretty not great,” the reality star told Kaitlyn.
The podcast host empathized and replied, “’I hate that. I’ve heard that so many times.’
“It’s not that she was mean, per se, she just made me feel stupid,” Ali explained.
The Bachelorette’s comments on Ellen’s behavior aren’t new, as emphasized by Kaitlyn’s response. Ellen’s entire career came crashing down after she closed up shop on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2021. Many attribute the sudden shuttering of her popular show to the scathing accusations levied at her by 10 former employees, who allege she created a “toxic” workplace on set through an atmosphere of “racism, fear, and intimidation.”
After the initial allegations broke, many other celebrities and industry workers opened up about their negative experiences with Ellen.
Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett, who costarred in a voice role alongside the former talk show queen in Finding Nemo, insisted she is “responsible” for what happens on her set and that her nasty temperament was “common knowledge.”
While Kathy Griffin, who is known to have a long-time standing beef with Ellen, once wrote, “this person, who has short blonde hair, has a mean streak that all of Hollywood knows about.”
Now, as Ali adds herself to the list of people slamming the embattled comedian, the source notes there’s nothing Ellen can really do at this point, except try to stay as far away as possible.
“The worst part is she really can’t defend herself because it will only add fuel to the fire but of course it’s incredibly upsetting and frustrating. She wants to deny this and point out that there are tapes of the interviews she did with Ali and they don’t show anything nefarious or nasty, but Ali is just claiming it’s how Ellen made her ‘feel’ so there’s really nothing she can say to disprove that,” the source explains.
“What’s really hitting her like a ton of bricks right now is that her dream of making a comeback is pretty well dead in the water. She genuinely thought she could take this time away in England and maybe in a year or two try and dip her toe back into showbiz but clearly the hatred for her is still as strong as ever if these two nobody reality stars are comfortable openly trash-talking her.”
“She’s feeling very defeated and depressed right now.”
