Ellen DeGeneres’ Wife Portia de Rossi Breaks Her Silence Amid Controversy

As Ellen DeGeneres and her daytime talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show come under fire, her wife Portia de Rossi is standing by the comedian’s side. De Rossi broke her silence Monday morning via Instagram posting a photo that reads, “I Stand By Ellen,” with a pale blue background and white letters. “To all our fans….we see you. Thank you for your support.” She added several hashtags including, “I stand with Ellen DeGeneres,” “I stand by Ellen” and “Be kind to one another.”

Fans flooded the comment section with both support and disagreement. One person wrote, “It sucks that people have nothing better to do than attack others. If you’ve followed Ellen for this long, you know she’s not for that at all. Her company rebuilt the high school gym in our town after Hurricaine (sic) Harvey. She’s full of love, for even those she doesn’t know.” Someone else said, “I DONT STAND WITH ELLEN!” Another Instagram user said, “Hmm she wasn’t very kind to others by the sound of it… what is that?” One person praised de Rossi for standing by DeGeneres, writing, “No surprise here, Portia, you are Ellen’s Number 1 fan Proud of you for standing for your amazing wife [thumbs up emoji].” Several left pizza emojis as conspiracy theorists suspect she is part of a child sex trafficking scandal called “Pizzagate”

The Finding Dory actress and her show have been taking a lot of heat in recent months after several former employees allege that DeGeneres, along with her show’s work environment are both toxic and unkind — which is the opposite of what the host speaks about every show as she encourages her fans to spread love and kindness. While several have anonymously come forward, one former producer decided to go on record with her accusations. Hedda Muskat called the host “toxic” and admitted that she’s never been around such harsh work environments. She recalled back in 2003 when she joined the show that executive producer at the time Ed Glavin yelled so loud at one of the staff he became red in the face, shocking everyone who attended the meeting, then proceeded to say that DeGeneres giggled.

“She crossed her legs up on the chair and she said, ‘Well, I guess every production needs their dog.’ and from then we knew. Ed was going to be the barking dog — her dog. You could just see everybody’s faces go stiff. We’re professionals; we’re adults. We don’t need a dog to get us to do our jobs. […] She was the only one giggling.”