Margaret Cho Says Ellen DeGeneres Was ‘Not Nice to Me for Most of My Career’: ‘We Go Way Back’ but She Would Act ‘Like We Just Met’
Margaret Cho is getting candid about a longtime rift in Hollywood that many fans never saw coming. In a recent interview on David Yontef’s Behind the Velvet Rope podcast, Cho opened up about her complex history with fellow comedian Ellen DeGeneres, revealing that the daytime talk show host wasn’t exactly warm to her throughout their decades-long careers reported variety
“We go way back, I mean way back,” Cho explained. “Back to the Roseanne days, back to stand-up in the late ’80s, early ’90s. We were part of the same scene. But she was not nice to me for most of my career. Not at all.”
Despite that shared history, Cho said DeGeneres would often act as if they were total strangers. “She would treat me like we had just met. Like I was a fan who wanted a selfie or something. It was always very cold, very dismissive. It didn’t make sense, especially given how long we’ve both been in this business.”
Cho’s remarks arrive amid continued conversation surrounding DeGeneres’ reputation in the industry. Once hailed as the queen of kindness with her long-running talk show Ellen, the host faced backlash in 2020 after former employees accused the show of fostering a toxic work environment. Though DeGeneres apologized and the show wrapped in 2022, the fallout has lingered.
Margaret Cho, known for breaking barriers as one of the first Asian-American comedians to headline a major network sitcom, said she’s speaking out now not out of resentment, but out of honesty.
“I’m not here to cancel anyone,” she clarified. “But I do think it’s important to tell the truth about what it’s like for women in comedy, especially women who aren’t always accepted into the ‘cool club’ of Hollywood.”
Though she acknowledged DeGeneres’ legacy as a trailblazer in LGBTQ+ visibility, Cho emphasized that kindness should extend behind the scenes, too.
“It’s not about public image. It’s about how you treat your peers when nobody’s watching.”
At a time when the comedy world continues to reckon with questions of inclusion and authenticity, Cho’s reflections are a reminder that even long careers in the same spotlight can come with very different experiences.
