Steve Harvey has defended Ellen Degeneres insisting she doesn’t have any “racist tendency” after staff who work on her show complained about instances of racial microaggressions.
The popular chat show host as been at the centre of a scandal after BuzzFeed News published a report in July (2020) which detailed staffers negative experiences on the Ellen set, including claims of being penalized for taking medical leave, instances of racial microaggressions and fear of retribution for raising complaints.
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However, many of her famous pals including Kevin Hart and Katy Perry have come to her defense, and Harvey joined them as he told People TV on Thursday (September 17, 2020), DeGeneres is “one of the coolest and kindest people I’ve met in this business”, and insisted she “has no control over what every staff member does”.
“I’m a 63-year-old black man. I’ve been black the entire time,” he told People. “I ain’t took no days off. I ain’t experimented with nothing else. I ain’t got nothing else going. I’ve been a black dude my whole life. I know racism.
“If I have a conversation with you, I know if you got racist tendency somewhere in you, because it radiates. I can feel it. I’ve been around a long time, man. That’s not Ellen DeGeneres. That’s just not her, period.”
Harvey later added: “You make it like that if you want to. But if you try to make it that way, it’s because you don’t know her. I know her. And that’s the feeling I have.”
The Steve Harvey Show host confirmed he’s been in touch with DeGeneres, with the star encouraging her to keep her “head up”.
“We’ve texted each other. But my first advice was Ellen got enough money to walk away. But, we’re in the cancel culture right now, man, everybody want to see everybody fall down, man,” he said. “People used to cheer for people. Now, it’s so important to ruin everybody’s career… But I think Ellen’s going to be absolutely fine myself.”
Following an internal investigation into The Ellen DeGeneres Show conducted WarnerMedia, DeGeneres has since apologized to her staff, and three of the show’s top producers have parted ways with the show.
