Staff Members Were Terrified of Ellen DeGeneres, Confirms Adam Carolla
Adam Carolla is showing up late to the Ellen DeGeneres bashing party, piling on the disgraced host during the latest episode of the After Party with Emily Jashinsky podcast. DeGeneres didn’t exactly admit she was a bad boss on her 2024 Netflix special, For Your Approval, but make no mistake, says Carolla, “Ellen has always been a mean person.”
Talk shows don’t have to be miserable, Carolla told Jashinsky. He explained how guesting can be a fun, laid-back experience — depending on the host. “Every show has its own kind of personality,” he explained. “Not the on-air show, but the behind-the-scenes. They all take on the personality of their leader.”
He likened going on a talk show to shopping at a business where all the employees are friendly and relaxed versus a shop where “everybody’s sort of douchey. You’re going, ‘Why is everyone so mean and crappy in this business?’ The owner is that way, you know.”
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When Carolla did The Tonight Show, for example, “(Jay) Leno was fun and breezy and easy. People were nice and they were laid-back. They weren’t looking over their shoulder at all.” He had a similar experience with his old Man Show partner Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show. “People are nice.”
Guesting on Ellen was a different story, he said. “People were scared, real scared.”
How did Carolla know Ellen’s folks were spooked? He was hanging in his dressing room when a segment producer arrived to discuss interview topics. After going over the approved conversation points — “Christmas vacation or whatever” — the nervous producer confirmed that Carolla wouldn’t step out of bounds.
“You’re not going to talk about meat or beef or anything like that, right?” (DeGeneres is vegan.)
Carolla assured the producer he’d play along. “No, I’m just going to talk about the stuff we talked about — going on vacation at Christmas.”
Twenty minutes later, the skittish producer was back with a second warning: “Don’t talk about beef or meat or anything.”
“Oh, this guy’s scared to death,” Carolla realized.
He recalled talking to another former Ellen employee, unnamed because the writer had signed an NDA. “How’s Ellen?” Carolla asked.
“Worst person,” the writer said. “Not the worst person I’ve worked for. Worst person I’ve ever met.”
According to Carolla, another talk-show host who temporarily wore the “Queen of Nice” crown was just as bad. “I knew the guy who did Rosie (O’Donnell),” Carolla said. “The worst and the meanest. So, I don’t know. There’s some kind of mean-off between Rosie in her prime and Ellen in her prime. You know, the Clash of the Titans.”
Add David Letterman to that terror mix as well. “Letterman’s show, people were scared,” Carolla said. “Dave would scare them.”
Carolla concluded that while DeGeneres treated him just fine, “she’s not a nice person at all.”
“Everyone was scared of her, which means she’s mean. She’s not going to be mean to me. I’m a guest on the show, right?” he said. “I wouldn’t know it from my exchanges. I would know it from how her staff was cowering.”
