New Toxic Workplace Just Dropped
It’s starting to feel like Ellen all over again amid claims that working for The Kelly Clarkson Show will literally ruin your life, with Clarkson having responded to the allegations over the weekend.
In an Rolling Stone expose published last week, staffers have said that there’s a toxic culture behind the scenes of the long-running daytime talk show, which has left staff feeling overworked, underpaid, and traumatised.
In the profile, staffers don’t take issue with Clarkson herself, but show producers including Alex Duda who one former employee describes as a “monster”.
“I have a friend who’s an executive producer who warned me about taking this job, because apparently [Duda] has done this on every show she’s worked on,” she told the publication.
The article also revealed that one staffer was suffering so badly that she saw a psychiatrist for the first time, and another said working conditions “deterred [her] from wanting to work in daytime ever again”. The anonymous employee added, “When I say I was traumatised, I was really traumatised.”
Other allegations include tales of of producers throwing temper tantrums, throwing staplers across the room, and freezing out staff members who make complaints. One former staffer even says that she experienced such retaliation when she asked what executive producers were doing about Anti-Asian hate crimes, that she felt pressured to quit.
Kelly Clarkson has since responded to the claims on Instagram over the weekend:
“In my 20 years in the entertainment industry, I’ve always led with my heart and what I believed to be right,” she wrote in a Black and White carousel. “I love my team at The Kelly Clarkson Show, and to find out that anyone is feeling unheard and or disrespected on this show is unacceptable.”
She went on to say that any toxicity on the show will be “eradicated” as the show relocates from LA to NYC for some reason, and that all senior staff including herself will participate in leadership training.
“I am more committed than ever to ensuring that not only our team that is moving, but also our new team in NY, is comprised of the best and kindest in the business.”
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This isn’t the first time we’ve heard allegations of office equipment throwing come out of the US. In 2019, then Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar reportedly threw phones and binders, one of which (unintentionally) hit an employee. Far be it from me to say, but maybe, don’t throw office supplies?
Now that both The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Kelly Clarkson Show are being taken to task, only one question remains: can you save us, Drew Barrymore? Can we be saved?
More to come.