There are quite a few questions surrounding Ellen DeGeneres’s current comedy tour. She is out on the road working on material for her upcoming Netflix special, Ellen’s Last Stand … Up, which will film over two nights in Minneapolis in August. However, there appear to be a few bumps in the road as she abruptly canceled four shows in Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago, last week without any explanation.
“Unfortunately, the Event Organizer has had to cancel your event,” Ticketmaster wrote in a statement on their website. “You don’t need to do a thing. We’ll issue a refund to the original method of payment used at time of purchase, as soon as funds are received from the Event Organizer. It should appear on your account within 14-21 days.”
Now, an In Touch insider is revealing some of the issues at hand from behind the scenes — and it reportedly involves her talk-show scandal from 2020. “Contrary to indications Ellen made a few months ago that she was ready to talk candidly about her scandal and the end of her talk show in her new stand-up tour and planned Netflix special, things have changed since then,” the source claimed. “The material she has now completed and written for this tour does NOT go very deep into her scandal at all.”
DeGeneres is apparently not “comfortable with the idea of talking about that stuff night after night” and is “second guessing” her original idea to talk about the controversy. She has the support of Netflix, too, because her 2018 special, Relatable, was a “massive hit with viewers and with critics.” The former talk show host has decided to pivot and make “a couple of gentle, vague jokes” about her controversy and move on. In July 2020, the 66-year-old comedian’s world blew up when she found herself on the receiving end of criticism from a deep-dive article on Buzzfeed News.
Employees discussed The Ellen DeGeneres Show‘s “toxic work culture” while her fans were shocked by the allegations. They only knew DeGeneres to be a lovable daytime presence, but many people in Hollywood had heard the rumors for years. “If [Ellen] wants to have her own show and have her name on the show title, she needs to be more involved to see what’s going on,” a former crew member said. While changes were made behind the scenes on the show, DeGeneres’ reputation never really recovered by the time the series wrapped in 2022.
That’s why the In Touch source believes that DeGeneres is making the “wrong move” with her comedy tour. “Ellen has a real opportunity to address the allegations made about her head-on, admit some guilt, get some laughs, and finally move on,” they noted. Instead, it sounds like DeGeneres is going to pretend like nothing ever happened.
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