Ellen DeGeneres thanked her “amazing staff” at Sunday’s E! People’s Choice Awards months after her daytime TV talk show was accused of fostering a workplace rife with abuse by top-level associates.
“I am not only accepting this award for myself, I’m accepting it on behalf of my amazing crew, my amazing staff who make the show possible,” she said in accepting The Daytime Talk Show of 2020 award. (See her full speech below.)
“They show up every single day, give 100% of themselves, 100% of the time,” she said. “That’s 250 people, times 170 shows a year, times 18 years, if you carry the 2 and divide it by 11. My point is, I love them all. And I thank them for what they do every single day.”
DeGeneres also thanked her fans “for sticking by me.”
A BuzzFeed report in July put “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and its eponymous host in damage control mode. Current and former staffers said they’d been victimized by intimidation, racism and sexual misconduct while working on the show. The show ousted some top producers and a contrite DeGeneres returned to the air in September.
“I learned that things happened here that never should have happened,” she said at the time. “I take that very seriously and I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected.”
Here’s her acceptance speech on Sunday.