Ellen DeGeneres Put Serious Effort Into Terrorizing An Employee with Snakes

Was Ellen DeGeneres really all that mean as a boss? 

If you were an Ellen fan, it wasn’t hard to cut her some slack. A BuzzFeed expose aired the grievances of some former employees, and in many ways, DeGeneres didn’t sound that much worse than your run-of-the-mill boss. Accusations that she wasn’t aware her producers were taskmasters? Hey, she had a lot on her plate — she couldn’t expect to be on top of everything. A former bodyguard claimed DeGeneres was “cold”? Maybe being quiet was just DeGeneres’ way of recharging her batteries.

But all the criticism hurt DeGeneres’ feelings, so much so that she retreated into self-imposed exile to lick her wounds. Or from her point-of-view,  she was kicked out of show business (even though DeGeneres seemed to be the main person keeping Ellen from working). Now, someone must have kicked her right back into show biz because DeGeneres is setting out on Ellen’s Last Stand… Up, a nationwide comedy tour playing some of the biggest venues in the country. Lots of comics would love to experience that kind of cancelation.

In a press release announcing the tour, DeGeneres promised to face her troubles head on: “To answer the questions everyone is asking me — Yes, I’m going to talk about it.”

After receiving a standing ovation at Radio City Music Hall earlier this month, DeGeneres did talk about it. But who knew that she’d just be giving her critics more ammunition? The reluctant boss who earlier on the tour admitted that “I didn’t go to business school. I went to Charlie’s Chuckle Hutt” took to the New York stage to tell stories BuzzFeed wishes it could have included in its story. 

DeGeneres talked about how she jokingly “scared people constantly” on set, according to Closer Weekly. That checks out — Ellen made a running bit out of startling her celebrity guests, usually to raucous laughter.

But when it came to DeGeneres’ own employees, she took it a step further — a practice that she now admits was “terrorizing.” The comic told the Radio City Music Hall crowd about Amber, an Ellen employee who had a fear of snakes. “So, sometimes before they come into my office, we would hide rubber snakes in a panel in the ceiling, and I had a button that I could push to leave that drop out on top,” she told the audience. “Again, hearing myself say this… ” 

She did what? 

It’s one thing to pull an April Fools gag — “Hey, there’s a snake! Aw, just kidding!” — and another entirely to rig secret panels that unleash horror via remote control. Think about it: DeGeneres not only had to premeditate the “gag” well in advance but presumably enlist crew members to build her terror trap. All in the service of scaring the crap out of someone who stupidly confided a major vulnerability. 

That’s not just “mean,” Ellen. It’s downright diabolical.