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Celebs Who Forgot About Their Employees During The Pandemic

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Ellen DeGeneres built an empire on the phrase “be kind to one another” — her own crew says that’s not the message they got.

When The Ellen DeGeneres Show went dark in mid-March 2020 as the pandemic shut down production across Hollywood, more than 30 members of the show’s core stage crew were left waiting. What followed, according to a mid-April Variety report, was over a month of silence from producers, a remote broadcast built without them, and a pay cut announced despite the show adding an extra day of programming. The story landed hard precisely because it came from the woman whose brand is kindness.

• More than 30 union stage crew members, affiliated with IATSE, went over a month without written communication from producers about hours, pay, or health status.
• On April 2, 2020, crew members learned via social media that DeGeneres had built a remote set at her California home using Key Code Media, an outside non-union tech company, instead of calling in her own technical staff.
• When producers finally addressed the situation the following week, crew were told they’d face a 60% pay reduction — even as the show expanded from four broadcast days a week to five.

A Month of Silence

The core complaint in the Variety piece wasn’t just money — it was the absence of basic communication. Crew members told the outlet they had no idea whether they were still employed, what their hours would look like, or whether the production had even checked on their health as COVID-19 spread through Los Angeles. For a union crew accustomed to a set schedule, five weeks of radio silence from Warner Bros. Television left people distressed and, in the words of the report, outraged.

The Remote Set Nobody Saw Coming

That silence turned into anger on April 2, when crew discovered on social media that DeGeneres had already set up a home studio to keep the show running — without them. Rather than bring in her existing IATSE technical staff, production went outside the union to Key Code Media to get the remote broadcast on air. For a crew that had spent years building the show’s look, watching an outside vendor step into that role via a social post was the moment the frustration became public.

Five Days of Work, 60% Less Pay

Executives finally addressed the crew roughly a week after the remote set went live. The message: pay would be cut by 60% for the staff not brought back for the home broadcasts. The math didn’t sit well with anyone, since the show was simultaneously expanding its output from four episodes a week to five. Warner Bros. Television later acknowledged that communication “could have been handled better” during the chaos of the shutdown, while maintaining that the crew had technically remained on the payroll the entire time.

“Queen of Nice” Takes a Hit

The timing made things worse for DeGeneres personally. Her first at-home episode, filmed in her multi-million-dollar mansion and aired April 6, opened with a joke comparing quarantine in her estate to “being in jail” — a line that landed poorly with viewers who had just lost jobs or were stuck in far smaller homes. The following day, DeGeneres addressed her staff directly on air.

“I love them, I miss them, the best thing I can do to support them is to keep the show on the air.”

That April 7 statement was meant to reassure viewers that the show’s return was about protecting jobs. Instead, it collided head-on with the Variety report just days later, reigniting scrutiny of a host long associated with her “be kind” catchphrase. Fans and former staffers who’d previously raised concerns about her off-camera reputation felt vindicated — a theme covered elsewhere in pieces like Top 10 Celebrities Who Tried To Warn Us About Ellen DeGeneres and Bodyguard Reveals Ellen DeGeneres Is Nothing Like She Seems.

Warner Bros.’ position — that checks kept getting sent even without the emails, calls, or hour updates crew members wanted — is the defense the studio is sticking with. The crew’s counter is simpler: a paycheck without a phone call isn’t the same as being taken care of, and thirty-plus people who build that show every day know the difference.