Over the past few weeks, dozens of current and former employees of Ellen DeGeneres have come forward to claim that she turned a blind eye to racism, intimidation, and sexual misconduct on the set of her daytime talk show. Now, things have gotten even worse for DeGeneres, as one of her former writers has come forward to say that she was “unpleasant” when he worked with her.

Dan Tobin claimed to the U.K. Express that DeGeneres would often switch from being “incredibly likeable and warm” to “mean” during his time on her sitcom “The Ellen Show” in 2001. He added that her anger typically stemmed from jokes she didn’t like, as she viewed them as an attack against her.

“Ellen would get kind of angry if the joke wasn’t good and would blame us, she would yell ‘Why are you writing these unfunny jokes?'” he said. “It was not a failed attempt at humor so much as a personal insult to her. She let us know this is how she felt. Daily.”

Tobin went on to say that friends of his have always been shocked to hear that DeGeneres isn’t as nice as she seems onscreen.

“I was way out in front on this one, I knew that Ellen was not the model of perfection that sometimes she had seemed,” he said. “As my friends used to say, I was saying Ellen’s a jerk before it was cool.”

Tobin added that DeGeneres won the writers over during performances, with her “charm, smile and comedic timing” but when she stopped filming, things changed dramatically.

“We all used to say it was a testimony to what a great actress she was, that she could convince everyone of how lovely she was – we saw it all the time,” he recalled. “She is very talented and very funny, she would give it her all and everyone would fall in love with her. But once they had yelled ‘Cut’, her face would fall and she would would turn on us, she would shout ‘These jokes are terrible!’”

When “The Ellen Show” was cancelled in 2002 after just 18 episodes, Tobin said that DeGeneres hugged multiple people on set.

“She came up to me and kept her arm on my shoulder as if she was going to say ‘We will get them on the next one!’ but looked at me instead,” he remembered. “It was very clear she could just not fully quite remember who I was… I found that just hilarious and loved it – it became an instantly treasured memory.”

Tobin, who is now a teacher, said that he was hesitant to come forward about his experiences with DeGeneres, as he did not want to dampen her humanitarian work.

“Ellen wasn’t nice but she really has done a lot of good,” he said. “Especially in promoting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, where she is a wonderful ambassador and this has been in the back of my mind.”

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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