It’s been a turbulent year for the Ellen DeGeneres and her daytime talk show.
The series has been dragged through the mud in recent months of reports of toxic behavior.
On Sunday night, however, the series managed to win the Best Talk Show of 2020 award at the People’s Choice Awards.
DeGeneres put her staff at the front of her acceptance speech, calling them “amazing.”
“Thank you. From deep, deep down in my heart, I thank you.,” she said.
“I am not only accepting this award for myself but on behalf of my amazing crew and staff who make the show possible they show up every single day, give 100 percent of themselves, 100 percent of the time.”
“That’s 250 people, times 170 shows a year, times 18 years, if you carry the 2 and divide it by 11— my point is, I love them all. And I thank them all.”
“I know [where] this award comes from — thank you to the people,” she continued.
“Thank you to all of my fans for supporting me, for sticking by me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am. This means more than I can say.”
It wouldn’t be Ellen without hurling a joke in there to lighten the mood and it went as follows:
“I’m gonna wipe it down with Lysol and put it on my shelf.”
The Emmy winner faced intense controversy early this year when Buzzfeed News published two articles in which current and former employees came forward to say that she had fostered a toxic culture on the show.
In response, WarnerMedia launched an internal investigation into the show and Ed Glavin, Kevin Leman, and Jonathan Norman were ousted from the show.
Ellen apologized to her staff in a memo sent out in July before discussing the allegations in September on the premiere of her show.
“I learned that things happened that never should have happened. I take that very seriously,” she said on the episode.
“I want to say I am so sorry to the people who are affected. I know that I am in a position of privilege and power and I realize that with that comes responsibility. And I take responsibility for what happens at my show. This is The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
“The truth is, I am that person that you see on TV. I am also a lot of other things,” she added.
“Sometimes I get sad, I get mad, I get anxious, I get frustrated, I get impatient — and I am working on all of that. I am a work in progress, and I am especially working on the impatience thing and it’s not going well because it’s not happening fast enough. I will tell you that.”
Have a look at the acceptance speech below.
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Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.