The real story behind Ellen DeGeneres's old tweet about making an employee ‘cry like a baby’

Ellen DeGeneres is being freshly quizzed over a resurfaced tweet about feeling “good” after making one of her employees “cry like a baby”.

This comes after former employees at The Ellen Degeneres Show alleged a toxic environment of “racism, fear, and intimidation” last month. Some of the allegations were denied by producers, but Warner Bros quickly launched an internal investigation into the reports.

The resurfaced tweet – posted on 5 June 2009 – stated:

Some Twitter users suggested it was in reference to employee Jeannie Klisiewicz, who works as an on-air correspondent and often surprises fans in their homes.

In 2009, Ellen gave Jeannie a cruise as a gift for working on the show for a year, which seems like a very wholesome and reasonable explanation.

Nevertheless, many thought the tweet didn’t look good amid the allegations and ongoing internal investigation, as well as the recent departure of three top producers.

Ellen's representatives confirmed to indy100 that the tweet was about Jeannie Klisiewicz.

Klisiewicz called into The Ellen Show in 2008 wanting a job and DeGeneres hired her. The team wanted to do something special for her on the one-year anniversary of working on the show in 2009, so they surprised her with a cruise as a gift.

The full show segment is from Season 6 in 2009 and can be viewed here. It's very cute.

So with this in mind, it's clear that the old tweet has been misinterpreted.

It's understandable that DeGeneres would feel "good" about making someone cry for objectively good reasons.

In the aftermath of the bombshell reports from behind-the-scenes of her show, DeGeneres apologised in a Zoom call with more than 200 staffers having previously written a memo apologising a week earlier.

In the call, DeGeneres said that claims she had ordered staff not to look her in the eye were “crazy” and “not true”. She reportedly called herself an “introvert”, and someone who requires her own space.

She reportedly said:

Does that mean I’m perfect? No, I’m not. I’m a multi-layered person, and I try to be the best person I can be and try to learn from my mistakes.

The 18th season of the show is scheduled to start on 14 September, quelling rumours that the show might be cancelled.