YouTuber Trisha Paytas said she was told not to touch Ellen DeGeneres or look her in the eye while appearing on her show
- Trisha Paytas recounted her experience appearing on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2010 on the latest episode of her podcast "Frenemies."
- In the episode, Paytas called Ellen DeGeneres "a b----" and said that she was instructed not to look at or touch DeGeneres.
- DeGeneres previously said in a staff call with employees that she didn't know where the rumored instruction to not look her in the eyes came from, Page Six reported in August 2020.
Internet personality Trisha Paytas spoke about her 2010 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on the latest episode of her podcast "Frenemies," which she hosts with H3H3's Ethan Klein, calling controversial host Ellen DeGeneres "a b----" and saying that she wasn't allowed to touch her.
Paytas appeared on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2010, when she was 22 years old, to show off her speed-reading talent as part of an audience talent segment. In the clip, Paytas gushed over DeGeneres, reaching out to touch her and then pulling her hand back, saying that she shouldn't touch the host before launching into a whirlwind recitation of what appears to be DeGeneres' book "My Point... And I Do Have One."
Paytas said that, in a pre-Instagram era, she wanted to be famous and made her way onto the show via posting on YouTube. "My thought was, if I go on all these shows someone will discover me," she said on the podcast. "I thought Ellen was gonna discover me and I was gonna be like, a co-host of hers. That was my thought process."
Her experience on set didn't live up to her expectations, though, she said.
"When all that stuff started coming out [about Ellen], I was like, that makes sense because she was so awful. Literally, would not talk. They tell you... 'don't look in her eyes, don't touch her,'" Paytas said, referencing statements from celebrities and everyday people in 2020 that painted Ellen as mean or cold.
Others have made similar claims in the past about working with DeGeneres. Australian radio host Neil Breen said during a segment on his radio show, "4BC Breakfast" that his team was given specific instructions for working with DeGeneres when he was working as a producer on Australia's "Today" show. Breen alleged that his team was told to not talk to or look at DeGeneres.
Page Six reported in August 2020 that, per anonymous sources, DeGeneres described the alleged rule that people shouldn't look her in the eye as "insane," saying that she didn't know where it started and asking staff to "look [her] in the eye."
Both DeGeneres and her show came under fire during the summer of 2020, with BuzzFeed News reporting that one current and ten former employees alleged that the show had a "toxic" work environment in which they were subject to racism and intimidation. A second BuzzFeed News report contained allegations from dozens of former employees saying that executive producers on the show had engaged in sexual misconduct.
Read More: Why 2020 has been the year of backlash against Ellen DeGeneres
DeGeneres addressed the controversy in the opening monologue for her show's 18th season, saying that she "takes responsibility for what happens at my show."
A representative for DeGeneres declined to comment. Paytas did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.