DeGeneres built her brand as the Queen of Kindness.
Turns out she’s more complicated than that.
And maybe that’s our problem as well as hers.
Credit: Illustration by Scott Anderson for EW
We accept that successes in other professions can be prickly.
Theres no great shock in discovering that a Picasso or a Zuckerberg doesnt play well with others.
We admire Michael Jordan and know hes not buddy material.
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Not so with show people particularly those who radiate the warmth that plays well on a daytime couch.
So let us talkEllen DeGeneres.
I come not to bury Ellen, nor to praise her.
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We prize likability in megastars.
Ellen projects said magical realness from every radiant pore.
The stars, in most meaningful ways, are not like us.
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Like you, Ive known Ellen for decades.
Like you, I dont know Ellen at all.
Sadly, this does not add up to a relationship from which searing psychoanalytic insight is gained.
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True wisdom in Hollywood is in realizing the difference between a stars projected persona and her actual personality.
For years, insiders have dished thatThe Ellen DeGeneres Showis not the warm bath of good vibes depicted.
None of this excuses treating the help like chum.
(The heads of three producers did, indeed, roll following an internal investigation.)
That will now change, and Im committed to ensuring this does not happen again.
Ellen also reassured employees that it is just fine to look her in the eye.
Shes been in Hollywood long enough to know that waiting for the fever to break is the best course.
As Ive said, I know Ellen.
At only 28, that Ellen was remarkably true to the current iteration.
And I feel like everything does, except for fleas.
Young Ellen shyly agreed.
Her climb required toughness.
It couldnt have been so nice.
Just like a friend of yours, except a unicorn.
Somewhere in there, I assigned a writer to interview Ellen.
By then, there was talk, so I waited with anticipatory glee for my reporter to be devoured.
She returned alive, and with a different impression.
Was Ellen nice or mean?
She was deadly earnest.
In response to teen shootings and suicides, shed adopted kindness as aspiration, policy, and theology.
She believed in it because shed felt cruelty.
She never promised to be nice all the time.
She claimed it as an evangelical ideal.
Also, nothing in the celebrity toolkit prepares one to be a manager.
That was not the Hollywood of last year, let alone 1986.
And I mistakenly thought that if I was famous, then everyone would love me.
She should do better, we all should.
We dont yet know if Ellens reputation for goodness is permanently tarnished with her fans or her employees.
At 62, she can always take her millions and retreat to her Santa Barbara estate.
Nice or not, she is surely resilient.
Humility is not a virtue propitious to the artist, wrote Evelyn Waugh, huge talent and nasty man.
That is the paradox of artistic achievement.
The Ellen we know would never accept that paradox.
She would want to try, and have another go, to be kind.
That may be one of the very nicest things about her.
