Ellen DeGeneres Was the Most Difficult Oscar Host for the Award Show’s Writers

A number of mega-star comedians have hosted the Oscars over the course of its long history — from Bob Hope, to Whoopi Goldberg, to the anti-comedy performance artist known as “James Franco.” 

One famous name who’s not likely to be back hosting the Academy Awards any time soon is Ellen DeGeneres, who, to be fair, gave us one of the most memorable Oscar moments of all-time: the star-studded selfie, which may or may not have been “cursed.”

Since Ellen has subsequently experienced a tidal-wave of bad publicity concerning her behind-the-scenes behavior, which seemingly led to the cancellation of her talk show and inspired a self-pitying stand-up special, one more bad story probably won’t make a difference. But according to longtime Oscars joke writer Bruce Vilanch, DeGeneres was the most difficult host to work with.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Vilanch acknowledged that to “throw more fire on the more logs on the Ellen fire is kind of ridiculous,” but noted that there was friction between the Oscars writers and DeGeneres during production “only because she isolated herself.” From Vilanch’s perspective “she had her staff from her talk show, and she didn’t really want to have other people involved.”

Vilanch had pleasant encounters with Ellen in the past, but that changed by the time she accepted the Academy’s offer to host. “She was a lot of fun before she came out, and before she was bearing this responsibility of a movement on her shoulders,” Vilanch, a “gay icon” himself, argued. “My only bad experience with her was at the Oscars, where she just was not interested in input from anybody but her own people,” the Get Bruce star recalled. 

While it’s not uncommon for Oscar hosts to bring their own comedy writers along with them, the relationship between DeGeneres and the show’s existing crew became so strained that, per Vilanch, the producer of the Oscars, Laura Ziskin, rang her up and issued an ultimatum. When one of Ellen’s assistants asked what the call was about, Ziskin replied, “It’s about, if she still wants to host the Oscars, she should call me back, because otherwise she can walk away.” 

Keep in mind, this was back when celebrities actually wanted to host the Oscars.

“Two minutes later, Ellen called back,” Vilanch said. Although even then, she wasn’t open to the writers’ input on the material.

David Letterman similarly brought his own people with him and clashed with Vilanch and his writers over the direction of the show, although things didn’t get quite as heated. “There was a negotiation about stuff that we thought probably wouldn’t work. Some of that got cut, some of it went on the air anyway,” Vilanch explained. 

In Letterman’s defense, he did find a way to shade the Academy for neglecting to nominate the acclaimed Hoop Dreams for Best Documentary during his Top Ten list. 

Which should excuse at least three “Uma-Oprahs.”