Meet Greyson Chance. Back in 2010 when he was 12 years old, Greyson’s musical talent was “discovered” by Ellen Degeneres after this clip of his 6th grade talent school went viral where he sang Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’:
Ellen saw the video, saw $$$ signs flash in her eye balls, and invited him onto her show the next day. Greyson of course accepted and the two of them had a delightful little interview:
Greyson smashed it! He was charming, funny and witty. It was just like he’d been giving interviews on national TV his whole life. Greyson mentions in a recent interview with Rolling Stone that on the day, Ellen told him: “I’m going to protect you. I’m going to be here for you. We’re going to do this together.”
After their interview, Ellen set Greyson up with a manager, agent, publicist, booking agent etc, and he did tours in the US, Canada and Europe and even met Lady Gaga herself. It looked like he was destined for glory, and it was all because of Ellen putting him on her show and hooking him up with a team of music industry pros.
That is, until his 2nd album flopped and nobody gave a sh*t about him anymore – including Ellen. After his second album flopped, Ellen treated him like a leper. Here’s what he told Rolling Stone about that time:
“I couldn’t get ahold of her. Couldn’t talk to her. Whenever I would come on the show, it was such a fake smile. She wouldn’t even ask, ‘How are you doing? How are you holding up?’ It was just like, ‘Here’s what we’re going to talk about. We’ll see you on there.’”
On stage, however, DeGeneres would say things like, “I’m just so proud of you.” Bit of a d*ck move? I guess so. But Greyson’s mum has a more nuanced view of the situation:
“I think that Ellen is a businesswoman. And if something isn’t trending the way she wants it to, she’s going to put an end to it because it’s business for her. It’s not warm and fuzzy. I don’t think she invited people to be a part of her life or take someone under their wing like she did if she didn’t want to see something come of it. If it wasn’t moving fast enough for her, that’s when she started to shut down or shut us out.”
I think that’s fair enough really. If Ellen put her time and effort into something and wasn’t seeing dividends anymore, then it makes sense that she cuts that thing loose. After all, she did give him a huge platform and hooked him up with a manager, agent, stylists and everything else, who I guess then also abandoned Greyson. That’s the ruthless cut-throat world of show business, even if you’re a 12 year old kid.
But while this story highlighted in Rolling Stone may be a tad unfair toward Ellen, Greyson also had other stories about the TV host which backs up many of the other horror stories we’ve heard about her over the years:
– Ellen would snap and bully people backstage at her show.
– Ellen asked Greyson’s mum “what kind of mother are you?” after she failed to show Greyson a Justin Bieber video that Ellen insisted she wanted them to watch.
– Ellen wouldn’t let Greyson wear leather because she was vegan ‘at the time’ (eye roll).
So Ellen is a fake, performative, manipulative bully with a massive ego who feeds her audience BS that she knows they want to hear, and on camera is the complete opposite of how she is in real life. What else is new? We all knew this already from the countless stories about her already doing the rounds.
Is it a tad convenient this article is coming out as Greyson prepares to release a new album? Probably. Will that album flop? Also probably. Fair play to Ellen for giving this kid everything he needed to get his shot at stardom back in 2010, I guess he thinks she could’ve been a little nicer to him after it all went to pot.
For reports that Ellen lay ‘household traps’ for her staff and took pleasure in firing them, click HERE.
