Ellen ruthlessly bullying Taylor Swift

[Anonymous]

This is viral. This is just one minor example of how evil and cruel she was. She was paid $100 million a year for this.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, awful. It would have been wrong back then but it comes across as so abusive now.

[Anonymous]

Poor Taylor! She’s never struck me as someone completely hung up on guys /s

[Anonymous]

Whatever. She’s made a fortune off of being a victim.

[Anonymous]

I think Taylor will be ok lmao

[Anonymous]

She has lots of Grammies and accolades. How was she being minimized? She literally won all the awards, highest sales, tons of fans?

[Anonymous]

I really dislike Ellen Degeneres but also this is what talk show hosts do. It's not just Ellen -- I could easily see this being a bit on Jimmy Kimmel or Dave Letterman or any number of talk shows. I think the bigger issue is that we as a society thought something like this was funny and we continued to uphold Ellen as one of the "nice comedians" even though she did stuff like this.

Young women have always been viewed as unserious and disposable in this way. I'm not even a Taylor Swift fan (nothing against her personally, I just don't really like her music) but the idea of forcing her to look at a bunch of photos of her with random men (many of which are just random photos from press events and she didn't even date those guys) and talk about her relationships with them is so messed up.

The one question I have though is whether Taylor has ever exploited the interest in her dating life in order to promote an album or raise her own profile. I don't follow her closely enough to know but I do remember a few years ago when she was dating Tom Hiddleston (which was a weird match) just being inundated with updates on their relationship that absolutely felt like PR plants. I do think if you don't want to be harassed about your dating life this way, you also shouldn't use it as a career boost.

TL;DR: that clip is gross but not unusual for talk show interviews, and I do think Taylor may have played into this dynamic before so it might be hypocritical to complain about it when it hurts you but then silently benefit from it at other times. That doesn't help women who come after her who might be treated the same way.

[Anonymous]

Ellen has always been terrible.

It's not really that much of a Hollywood secret, but the thing is, Hollywood let Ellen get too big to the point of it being who can cancel her now?

And what's it matter? She's retired. She's never doing another show or comedy tour. So what if she gets canceled? She'll be off in one of her mansions with all her money and animals.

A cousin worked for her for 3 years and said that Ellen likes to laugh AT others, not with them. When people were competing on her show to win "pathetic little prizes" (according to her) like TVs or gadgets by doing crazy antics she'd thought up, she laughed at them for being pathic. She wasn't laughing at them for the antics.

[Anonymous]

That clip was awful.

[Anonymous]

It's all old shit. Who cares at this point. Ellen isn't even on the air.

[Anonymous]

I can't stand how much Kelly Clarkson interrupts and makes everything about her (I think it's an innocent effort to connect), but both she and Drew Barrymore are doing a GREAT job of interviewing celebrities and making it a fun, positive experience for them. So we know it's possible.

Say all you want about James Corden being a jerk but on his show, he's great at only very gently teasing guests and also letting them have a good experience. Stephen Corbet and Trevor Noah also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand how much Kelly Clarkson interrupts and makes everything about her (I think it's an innocent effort to connect), but both she and Drew Barrymore are doing a GREAT job of interviewing celebrities and making it a fun, positive experience for them. So we know it's possible.

Say all you want about James Corden being a jerk but on his show, he's great at only very gently teasing guests and also letting them have a good experience. Stephen Corbet and Trevor Noah also.

totally agree with all you've said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand how much Kelly Clarkson interrupts and makes everything about her (I think it's an innocent effort to connect), but both she and Drew Barrymore are doing a GREAT job of interviewing celebrities and making it a fun, positive experience for them. So we know it's possible.

Say all you want about James Corden being a jerk but on his show, he's great at only very gently teasing guests and also letting them have a good experience. Stephen Corbet and Trevor Noah also.

Drew does a great job. Probably because she, better than anyone, understands the dark side of celebrity.

[Anonymous]

It's a fine line. I do agree Ellen took it too far.

As a culture we have to make fun of celebs. The roasts. The oscar monologues. Part of it is, they have so much. Most are rich, famous, talented, and attractive. So a little roasting helps make them relatable.

But like I said a fine line into bullying and I do think there are different standards for a young woman being put on the spot like this vs. all the jokes about Clooney or Dicaprio dating younger women from the Acad Awards stage.

[Anonymous]

I mean why did Taylor agree to go on the show? lol