Yet another Ellen DeGeneres show has been cancelled and excuse us while we find our tiny violin
Ellen DeGeneres during a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. (Getty/Brooks Kraft)
Ellen DeGeneres will be saying goodbye to another show after NBC chose not to renew Ellen’s Game of Games.
The comedian famously decided to quit her talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, following a series of allegations that DeGeneres had been “notoriously mean” behind cameras and after staff accused senior producers of bullying, sexual misconduct and racism.
Now it has been confirmed that the 63-year-old’s unscripted primetime gameshow will not be returning to screens after the last season came to an end in May 2021.
The show, which was hosted by DeGeneres, featured larger-than-life versions of games that were previously included on her talk show.
Ellen DeGeneres addressed allegations of misconduct on the set of her talkshow. (YouTube)
The competition series premiered in December 2017, and each episode saw contestants compete for the chance to win $100,000 (£734.838).
In 2019, Game of Games ranked as the number one game show in primetime, however the final season aired after a turbulent year for the star.
Ellen DeGeneres was well known for her “be kind” message, but her image took a hit when comedian Kevin T Porter started a viral Twitter thread in March 2020 describing her as “one of the meanest people alive”.
Later in 2020, former and current staff on The Ellen DeGeneres Show anonymously told Buzzfeed that the talk show was plagued by racism, bullying and harassment.
Those allegations prompted Warner Brothers to launch an investigation, which led to the dismissal of bosses Ed Glavin, Kevin Leman and co-executive producer Jonathan Norman from the talk show.
The once-revered host – whose ratings continued to fall after the toxic workplace scandal hit – later insisted that she chose to leave the show behind because she no longer found it “challenging”.
DeGeneres claimed that the controversies played no part in her decision to call it quits, but admitted that the scandal was “very hurtful”.
“If I was quitting the show because of that, I wouldn’t have come back this season,” DeGeneres told The Hollywood Reporter. “So it’s not why I’m stopping, but it was hard because I was sitting at home, it was summer, and I see a story that people have to chew gum before they talk to me and I’m like, ‘OK, this is hilarious.’”
She continued: “Then I see another story of some other ridiculous thing and then it just didn’t stop. And I wasn’t working, so I had no platform, and I didn’t want to address it on [Twitter] and I thought if I just don’t address it, it’s going to go away because it was all so stupid.”
Ellen DeGeneres admitted the scandal “destroyed” her because she wanted to spread “kindness and compassion”.
