Thousands of people have signed a petition for Ellen Page to replace Ellen DeGeneres as the host of her own talk show, The Ellen Show.
The petition, which has been signed by more than 7,000 people, comes as DeGeneres has been embroiled in controversy in recent weeks.
Last month, comic Kevin Porter described her as “one of the meanest people alive”, and then encouraged Twitter users to share their “insane stories” of DeGeneres’ behaviour, pledging to match each one with a $2 donation to LA Food Bank.
The damning thread hoarded hundreds of unverified stories of the daytime talk show host’s behaviour claimed by apparent ex-employees as well as Los Angeles locals, seemingly at odds with her hyper-positive and generous reputation.
Less than two weeks later, things went from bad to worse when DeGeneres opened her first quarantine episode of The Ellen Show from home with a tone deaf joke about being queer in jail.
She said, from her $27 million mansion: “This is like being in jail, is what it is. It’s mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for ten days and everyone in here is gay.”
Although DeGeneres later quietly removed that section of the show, she has yet to address the incident or apologise.
According to the humorous Change.org petition: “Ellen Page is a much better Ellen to host The Ellen Show.
“Ellen DeGeneres is a hetero that just happens to be gay. Ellen Page is a much better host because she’s way more gay.”
One person said they signed the petition “because Ellen DeGeneres has made offensive comments towards a community of convicts, ex-convicts, and to every person that struggles to survive in these hard times”.
They added: “She’s wealthy and does not know what prison conditions are. Her joke was highly offensive towards the people that are suffering during this coronavirus pandemic, especially people with little to no resources to survive, and the economic and safety struggles we are enduring at the moment.
“Her show has to continue with someone with more empathy like Ellen Page. Ellen Page has been an active speaker for equal rights and has proven to be more professional and socially conscious than Ellen.”
Other commenters who supported the change in host described Page as “cooler”, “an absolute LGBT+ icon”, “hot as f”, “a more positive role model” and “a homo of the people not the press”.