'Ellen DeGeneres fakes kindness, makes audience follow absurd rules', says guest

Ellen DeGeneres after wreaking havoc for her employees has been giving a bit of a tough time to her audience members as well, as revealed by one guest on the show.

Dana Dimatteo, 29, had been an audience member during one of the episodes of The Ellen Show back in 2019 and had taken part in its Make It Rain segment where contestants are drenched in water in a bid to snag away $10,000.

Dimatteo, during an interview with The Sun, recalled how she had been quite excited when her name was called out by the comedian but the delight soon washed away when she observed DeGeneres’s sour behavior when camera weren’t rolling.

"During commercial breaks, Ellen would break out of her 'kind' character and sit moodily in silence on her couch, not acknowledging anyone. She didn’t say one word to the audience unless the cameras were on, she snapped out of her character the second the cameras stopped rolling,” said Dimatteo.

Apart from that, she also disclosed how the producers had warned her and other members of the audience to not be funnier than the host and were also tested to exhibit the required amount of excitement if their names were called out by her.

"My friend and I loved the show and it took us so long to get tickets. We flew all the way to Los Angeles from Chicago just for that. We were told by the producers that if we were picked we were not allowed to be funnier or smarter than Ellen, that she is the star and the comedian, not us,” Dimatteo said.

"We were told to act in a very specific way and to only speak if she asked us a question. They made us scream and jump around backstage as a test, it was pretty humiliating,” she added.

"Once the game was over, we were soaking wet so they sent us backstage. Then they just left us there…we waited pretty much the whole show in our soaking wet clothes for someone to bring us dry things to change into. It was really cold and uncomfortable. I didn’t enjoy myself on the show. You have to follow all these rules, you can’t be yourself, you have to clap constantly and laugh at things that aren't funny."