In the wake of the literal cancellation of The Ellen Show, every bloke and his dog has come out of the woodwork with an awkward Ellen DeGeneres encounter to share, the latest being Aussie entertainment reporter, Richard Wilkins.
Ol’ Dickie spun a yarn for Nine.com.au yesterday where he recounted interviewing the talkshow host and described the set of the show as “the coldest” studio he’s ever been to, both literally and figuratively.
“It was the coldest studio I’ve ever been in – figuratively and literally. It wasn’t just the temperature, which was freezing,” Wilkins wrote.
Not only that, but he said that his chat with Ellen DeGeneres was one of “the weirdest of interviews” that the beloved celebrity interviewer had ever done.
“I must admit it was quite intimidating,” he said. “The full audience witnessing the daytime talk queen being grilled mercilessly by some bloke they’d never heard of before.”
He concluded: “All very professional but definitely not a warm and fuzzy experience.”
Richard Wilkins added that he went on to interview her again in 2013 and Today’s then-executive producer Neil Breen was pissed off about the fact that DeGeneres’ staffers had allegedly banned everyone but Wilkins from talking to her on set.
Breen recently spoke out about the experience as the Ellen DeGeneres controversy kicked off last year.
The ex Today producer, who is now the host of radio station 4BC, revealed Ellen’s list of wild demands.
“[Ellen’s] producers called us aside … and said, ‘Now, Neil, no one is to talk to Ellen. You don’t talk to her, you don’t approach her, you don’t look at her,’” he said.
The demands came after Ellen’s staff already had “watered down” her appearance on Today from a spot co-hosting the Sydney-based show to doing just a sit-down interview in Melbourne, which meant the production had to relocate from Sydney to Melbourne with fuck all notice, Breen said.
“‘She’ll come in, she’ll sit down, she’ll talk to Richard [Wilkins] and then Ellen will leave.’ And I sort of said, ‘I can’t look at her?’ I found the whole thing bizarre,” he added.
He also said her team controlled how the interview would be conducted, from lighting to seating. Breen said he couldn’t tell what type of person DeGeneres was, as he “never got to talk to her.”
“I have no idea whether she’s a nice person or not, I wouldn’t have a clue,” he added. “But I can tell you the people who worked with her walked on eggshells the whole time, and the whole thing was totally bizarre.
“We’re there to do an interview to promote what she’s doing, but you can’t look at her? Someone get real.”
Yesterday, Ellen DeGeneres revealed that The Ellen Show would end its run after 19 seasons.
Matty Galea is the Entertainment Editor at Pedestrian who also dabbles in woo-woo stuff like astrology and crystals and has been penning horoscopes since the start of his career. He also Tweets about pop culture and astrology and posts spicy content on Instagram.
