- A resurfaced 2012 interview between Taylor Swift and Ellen DeGeneres went viral on TikTok.
- Fans online have criticized DeGeneres for creating a segment speculating about Swift's dating life.
Emily Ratajkowski called out Ellen DeGeneres in a TikTok comment for her treatment of Taylor Swift during an October 2012 interview.
On Friday, TikTok user thatnostalgicgirl uploaded a video about Taylor Swift that garnered more than 2.2 million views as of Sunday. The TikTok first featured a clip of Swift discussing her experience with others "reducing" her career and work in a 2019 Apple Music interview.
@thatnostalgicgirl in this interview she’s 100% describing being on the Ellen show #taylorswift #swiftie #k18results #taylorsversion #swiftok #theellendegeneresshow ♬ original sound - Ellen ✨
"When I was 23 and people were, kind of, reducing me to making slideshows of my dating life and putting people in there that I sat next to at a party once," Swift said.
She added: "It's a way to take a woman who is doing her job and succeeding at doing her job and making things, and it's, in a way, it's figuring out how to completely minimize that skill."
The TikTok featured a second clip of Swift during a 2012 interview on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." In the clip, DeGeneres openly speculates about Swift's dating life by showing a series of photos of the singer next to different famous men. DeGeneres then asked Swift to ring a bell if she had dated any of them who were pictured on a nearby screen.
"I don't think I'm going to do this," Swift said when DeGeneres handed her the bell.
"Yes, you will," DeGeneres answered before proceeding with the segment.
As the TikTok video went viral, users suggested in the comment section that DeGeneres's questions were inappropriate. Ratajkowski was among those who weighed in, writing on Friday that the situation was "so fucked up."
"She's literally begging her to stop," Ratajkowski added, referring to a point in the video when Swift, after holding her face in her hands, tells DeGeneres "stop it" several times. Her comment has amassed more than 68,000 likes as of Sunday. Later in the second clip, Swift tells DeGeneres: "this makes me feel so bad about myself."
Other users echoed Ratajkowski's sentiment, with one user writing: "She was about to cry."
"The irony being Ellen's sign off of 'Be Kind,'" another wrote. "This was cruel."
Representatives for Ratajkowski, Swift, and DeGeneres did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
In 2020, DeGeneres and her daytime TV show faced public backlash after reports of a toxic workplace environment, which sparked an internal investigation into staffers' accusations.
The NBC show officially ended in May 2022, but not before celebrities weighed in on DeGeneres' show. While some came to DeGeneres's defense, others shared stories of alleged bad behavior.