After spending her entire career as a comedian and talk-show host consumed by what other people think of her, Ellen DeGeneres says in her new Netflix special For Your Approval that she “just can’t anymore.” “But if I’m being honest, and I have a choice of people remembering me as someone who was mean or someone who was beloved,” DeGeneres confesses to the audience of fans who attended the taping at Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theater, she chooses beloved. While DeGeneres spends much of the special making her case to be viewed with affection once again — reminding us of her steady and hard-earned rise to popularity, and laying out the harsh treatment she feels she’s experienced at the hands of the media — some staffers who used to work on The Ellen DeGeneres Show say the one-hour routine “continues to invalidate and deny our experiences.
” Six former employees contacted by Rolling Stone (all of whom still work in Hollywood and asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution) say that in the special, DeGeneres conflates rumors about her unpleasant behavior with more serious allegations, made in the summer of 2020, of racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation at the talk show. Those claims (published in a BuzzFeed News story by this reporter) led to an internal investigation at the show and the firing of three producers. “There’s a difference between your persona and the way that you were handled in the media versus the culture that you perpetuated which .