The crushing reason Ellen DeGeneres will never host a talk show again
And the eye-watering true cost of Blake Lively’s legal drama... by Alison Boshoff
Hi, I’m Alison, the chief showbiz writer at the Daily Mail. And I’m delighted to bring you my weekly Big Story, exclusively for the Spotlight VIP Club.
Plus, a VIP Club reader asked whether I ever make friends with the celebrities I report on. Scroll to the end for my answer to that one…
First though, I’m hearing the legal bills for the endless Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni fall-out — over alleged sexual harassment on the set of their film It Ends With Us — have reached frankly obscene levels.
My well-connected source says we are now at $100 million (£74m) and counting. That’s for everyone who has been drawn in, including (deep breath) Lively, Baldoni, Ryan Reynolds, Disney, publicists Melissa Nathan, Jen Abel, Stephanie Jones and Leslie Sloane, the New York Times, the production’s insurance company, Baldoni’s producing partner Jamey Heath and crisis communications specialist Jed Wallace.
And we are still eight months away from trial!
Why ‘bored’ Ellen’s turning down work… and insisting she’ll never host a talk show again
We’ve all seen the dramatic headlines about Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, fleeing Trump’s America for a new life in the peaceful English Cotswolds.
But what about Ellen’s stalled career — and what is she really getting up to in the UK?
I can reveal that the former talk-show host has turned down offers of top-level work, and seems determined to stay retired. She’s even admitted that although she’d ‘love’ to host a talk show again, she doesn’t believe she ever will after the humiliating cancellation of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
While ‘in conversation’ with British TV executive Richard Bacon this week, she confessed that she’d previously said yes to working on a game show with him, only to change her mind.
Bacon pleaded: ‘Can I change your mind again? I’d really like to work with you.’
But Ellen politely wriggled out of it, saying: ‘I want to work with you. I don’t know what I want to do yet. So I have to — I am going to pick it very carefully and I don’t know what that is yet.’
Let’s face it, Bacon’s offer isn’t at the level Ellen is used to. He has created three game shows – The Hustler, I Literally Just Told You and This is My House — which have all been cancelled by UK broadcasters after an initial run.
But her star power, although admittedly a bit tarnished, could be the difference between success and failure.
So what’s the real reason she just keeps saying no?
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