Joe Rogan rarely hesitates when he sits across from killers, cult members, or some of the strangest people alive. But when his guests began unveiling what people claim is hidden inside Ellen DeGeneres’ world, Rogan barely uttered a word. One look at what he saw explains why. DeGeneres hosted her talk show for 19 straight years, bringing thousands of celebrity guests through her doors.
Her entire public image was built on being friendly, fun, and trustworthy. Then in 2020, that collapsed quickly when dozens of former employees came forward with stories of a fear-based workplace, leading to the show’s cancellation soon after. Now, one name keeps surfacing in the conversation: Jeffrey Epstein. His flight logs and contact lists include some of the biggest names in the world, and DeGeneres’ circle of friends sits closer to some of those names than most people expected.
Rogan recently pointed out something strange on his podcast, saying, “Ellen’s old TV studio looks a lot like places associated with Jeffrey Epstein. ” Once people heard that claim, many went back to watch old clips of her show with a completely fresh perspective, and what they say they found spread across the internet almost overnight. During the podcast, a guest broke the whole thing down piece by piece in real time while Rogan, a man who never runs out of words, barely spoke in reply. They compared an image of what appeared to be a temple-like structure to the backdrop of DeGeneres’ set, noting a striking resemblance.
By now, most people online have looked at the Epstein files themselves, which contain big names, strange connections, anda list of people that seems to stretch on forever. DeGeneres’ name reportedly appears in specific places tied to very specific people. Her documented friendships with people now facing serious allegations, along with the timing of her leaving the country shortly after, create an uncomfortable picture when placed side by side. On their own, these connections might not mean much, since Hollywood paths cross all the time.
But when compared to everything else in the story, they stop feeling like small coincidences and start feeling like part of a much larger pattern. In the Epstein files, a strange coded word appears frequently: “jerky. ” Emails reportedly reference phrases like“Can I try your jerky? ”“You need to help the jerky walk to this place，” and “There is one bag of beef jerky in the fridge on 71st Street.
Please bring it. ” One person reportedly said, “So-and-so has more on their plate. ” The odd wording, especially the question of why jerky would need to walk, has drawn significant online attention. At the 2014 Oscars, DeGeneres hosted Hollywood’s biggest night.
In front of the entire world, she suddenly decided to order pizza for the whole room. Rather than champagne or luxury fare, she opted for pizza, then turned to two specific people to help pay for it: Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. Both names would later become central to two of the biggest scandals in entertainment history. At the time, everyone laughed it off as a bit for the cameras.
Now, many no longer find it funny, as the moment looks less like an innocent joke and more like something hiding in plain sight before a massive audience. DeGeneres once gave fans a full tour of her private home, and what people noticed hanging on her walls sent much of the internet into a frenzy. Certain paintings in her house display symbols that many online describe as ritualistic. One hung directly above her head in one clip, another above her mother in a different video.
To some viewers, it looked like unusual art taste; to others, something far stranger. Then there’s the kitchen table. In a resurfaced old clip, DeGeneres herself says medical procedures were actually performed on that very table. That single detail alone sparked weeks of online discussion.
A strange painting or odd comment about a table might mean little by itself—many celebrities have unusual taste—butcombined with the art, the table comment, and everything else in the story, it begins to paint a picture many simply can’t look away from. A guest on Rogan’s show commented, “Have you seen Ellen DeGeneres’ home art? No, the art in our homes. It looks like satanic drawings by a three-year-old.
Imagine a three-year-old drawing satanic art filling the whole house. I’m sure she buys it as a tax write-off—isn’t that what big celebs do? Yeah,but why that kind of art? It’s disgusting.
Like, if you see some of these images,everything about Ellen is fake. I’ve heard about what goes on behind the scenes of the Ellen showand don’t want to know what goes on behind the scenes of her home. ” In the same clip, DeGeneres says, “This is the dining room and kitchen. If there’s any type of minor surgery,we do surgery on this table.
I think the biggest thing we’ve done is an appendectomy. ”
Rogan’s reaction to this whole story matters because he’s a man who has sat across from some of the most unsettling people on Earth without flinching once. Yet when the topic turned to DeGeneres, he used one word without hesitation:“disgusting. ” He wasn’t only talking about how she ran her show behind the scenes—he was talking about the way she moves around her guests on camera.
One clip shows her using a pointer to explain something to a guest, and her manner appears almost robotic, cold, mechanical, and outright creepy. It disturbed Rogan enough that he brought it up unprompted, saying, “Watch it yourself—there’s a good chance it will bother you too. ” In another clip, she reportedly used a chart to explain a mass shooting on daytime TV, gesturing with what looked like a car antenna as a pointer, leaving Rogan remarking,“Why the hell is that happening on a daytime show? That’s bizarre.
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While all this spread online, people who actually worked with DeGeneres began sharing their own stories, and they were hard to hear. Employees said they were told never to make eye contact with her while walking down hallways. One audience member claimed she was pulled aside before taping and given a simple rule to follow:“Don’t be funnier than Ellen. ”” A former writer on the show described her as nothing short of controlling behind closed doors.
These weren’t random gripes from one or two disgruntled staffers; dozens of people from different years and different roles on the show described the same type of behavior. Comedian Kevin Hart defended her, saying,“Do you think this is a prison? My grandmother died. We live in a mansion.
But I think part of it goes back to that guy who came out and said‘Hey, Ellen is mean. Share your stories about Ellen being mean. ’ Did you see the stories? They weren’t that bad , man.
What were they? They were like‘Oh,I came to her show and before I left,she didn’t say hi,’or‘Oh,Ellen cut a video after a joke about prison during the quarantine. ’” Another staff member recalled a moment of tension after a joke about prison, saying,“I thought,I was going to be fired for that. But that didn’t happen.
Things got strange after thatand we started winning Emmys. I won four Emmys on the show,but that made things worse—she started being mean. She’d look at you like you just stabbed her puppy, thenthe process of pushing people out of the inner circle began. ”
Then came a moment that laid everything bare.
Dakota Johnson appeared on the show one day, and DeGeneres asked her why she hadn’t been invited to Johnson’s birthday party. Johnson didn’t hesitateic, looking DeGeneres straight in the eye and saying,“You were invited. ” A producer on DeGeneres’ own show confirmed that on air in front of viewers. So where was DeGeneres the night of the party?
She was sitting in the front rows of a football game next to former President George W. Bush, seemingly unconcerned. Once staffers began speaking out shortly after,that old clip resurfaced online,and it hit people completely differently this time. What once seemed like a simple awkward TV moment suddenly looked like something else entirely: a pattern of someone playing the victim publicly while behaving completely differently behind the scenes.
Once you notice that pattern, you start seeing it everywhere else in this story too. The workplace stories were harsh, but another story takes things in an entirely different direction. Selena Gomez appeared on the show one day and mentioned something very strange live on air. She said she found a hidden camera in a bathroom—not just any bathroom,but the one she had just been using.
DeGeneres’ reaction did little to reassure viewers at home. She laughed, shifted awkwardly in her seat,and dismissed the whole thing as a prank. But many viewers noticed something else appear on her face first,before the laughter: a brief flash of discomfort that came and went in less than a second. It’s a small moment, taking only seconds on screen,but once you notice it,you can’t ignore it anymore—and it fits perfectly with everything already seen in this story.
In the clip, Gomez explained,“In my dressing room,there’s a bathroom with a camera. So I put towels over everything and went to pee in Kobe Bryant’s dressing room because I was scared. ” DeGeneres replied,“Okay,you were right. I was trying to scare you.
I got here an hour early and was trying to scare you. So it doesn’t matter if you put those things over the cameras—I had to be there,but you got here before I could hide. I messed it up. I’m sorry.
” Gomez responded,“Okay,no worries. I’ll get you back,beautiful. I’ll get you back. ” She also mentioned she hadn’t seen DeGeneres since she was a teenager.
Separately, a guest on Rogan’s show brought up a burglary at DeGeneres’ home while she was inside, joking grimly that the perpetrators were“still being tortured to this day,probably instill in an underground prison. She feeds them to her staff. ”
The full picture, combining the art on her walls, the alleged Epstein connections, the way she reportedly treated employees behind closed doors,and the on-camera moments that now seem unsettling, has left many people reassessing everything they thought they knew about her.
The question now isn’t just about a mean boss—it’s about how much of what was hiding in plain sight all along.
