Joe Rogan has never been one to shy away from unsettling conversation partners. He has sat across from killers, cult members, and some of the strangest people alive, usually without flinching. But when his podcast guests began detailing what people claim is hidden inside the world of Ellen DeGeneres, Rogan barely said a word. Once you see what he saw, the reason becomes clear.
DeGeneres hosted her daytime talk show for 19 consecutive years, welcoming thousands of celebrity guests through her doors. Her entire public image was built on being friendly, playful, and trustworthy. In 2020, that image collapsed quickly when dozens of former employees came forward with stories of a fear-based workplace, contradicting her “be kind” brand. The show was canceled shortly after.
Since then, one name has kept resurfacing in that conversation: Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein’s flight logs and contact lists include some of the biggest names in the world, and DeGeneres’s social circle appears closer to some of those names than most people expected. The turning point came when Rogan pointed out something odd on his podcast. He said her old TV studio resembled places connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
The guest on the show analyzed it piece by piece in real time, while Rogan—a man who rarely runs out of words—had almost nothing to say. He looked at a photo and said, “That’s a similar picture, right? ” His producer recognized the location as a famous talk show set that no longer airs. When Rogan confirmed it was Ellen’s, he simply said, “Really?
Look at that. ” The temple—then look at Ellen’s background. “People online quickly began rewatching old clips of her show with a fresh perspective, and what many claimed they found spread across the internet almost overnight_. The Epstein files have long been a subject of intense scrutiny” claimed to be filled with code words.
One word that reportedly appeared frequently in the files was “jerky. ” In a series of emails, people wrote phrases like “Can I try your jerky? ” and “You need to help the jerky walk to this place. ” One message read, “There is one bag of beef jerky in the fridge on71st Street.
Please bring it. ” These seemingly odd references have fueled speculation online, though their exact meaning remains unconfirmed. Against this backdrop, people revisited the2014 Academy Awards, where DeGeneres hosted Hollywood’s biggest night. In front of a global audience, she decided to order pizza for everyone in the room—not champagne or luxury items, but pizza.
She thenturned to two specific people to help pay for it: Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. At the time, both were celebrated figures, and the audience laughed it off as a comedic bit. In hindsight, with everything later revealed about Weinstein and Spacey, many no longer see it as an innocent joke. The moment has since been widely circulated online as an example of something that seemed to hide in plain sight.
Things became more personal when DeGeneres once gave fans a full tour of her home. People noticed certain paintings displayed on her walls, which many online described as ritualistic. One hung directly above her head in one clip; another hung above her motherown in a different video. Some viewers dismissed it as unusual art taste; others suggested it was something stranger.
Then there was the kitchen table. In a resurfaced clip, DeGeneres herself said medical procedures had actually been performed on that very table. That detail alone sparked weeks of online discussion. Rogan, asked about the art in her home, responded with a single word without hesitation: “Disgusting.
” He compared it to demonic drawings made by a three-year-old, adding, “Everything about Ellen is fake. ” His reaction carried weight because his job is literally interviewing odd and unpredictable people. When he voluntarily called a moment involving her “disgusting” on his own show, it meant more than most headlines suggested. He also pointed to a clip where she used a pointer to explain something to a guest.
Her movements seemed almost mechanical, cold, and robotic. The segment involved her showing a strange chart of how a shooting happened, interviewing a “Padock” man and two others. Rogan asked, “Why the hell is this on a daytime show? ” using the pointer like a car antenna, visibly unsettled by the delivery.
While this spread online, former employees were telling their own stories, and those stories were hard to hear. Workers said they were told never to make eye contact with her while walking down hallways. One audience member said she was pulled aside before a taping and given a simple rule: “Don’t be funnier than Ellen. ” A former writer described her as obsessed with control behind closed doors.
These were not isolated complaints from one two disgruntled staffers; dozens of people from different years and different positions on the show described the same kind of behavior. Among the stories: DeGeneres once reportedly became furious when a guest, comedian Kevin Hart, made a joke about prison during a pandemic-era monologue about quarantine. She was said to be boiling with anger backstage, though he was not fired. After the show started winning Emmys—he won four—he said things got worse, as she became meaner and would look at him as if he had just stabbed her puppy.
Then she began pushing people out of her inner circle. A defining moment came when Dakota Johnson appeared on the show. DeGeneres, as if she had heard something, asked Johnson why she had not invited her to her birthday party. Johnson did not hesitate for a second.
She looked DeGeneres directly in the eye and said, “You were invited. ” DeGeneres’s own producer confirmed that on air in front of everyone watching. So where was DeGeneres that night? She was sitting in the front rows at a football game next to former President George W.
Bush, apparently unbothered. Once former employees began speaking out, that old clip resurfaced and hit people differently this time. What once seemed like a simple awkward TV moment now looked like a pattern: someone playing the victim publicly while behaving differently behind the scenes. Another moment that drew attention involved Selena Gomez.
She appeared on the show one day and mentioned something strange live on air. She said she had found a hidden camera in the bathroom—not just any bathroom, but the one she had just been using. DeGeneres’s reaction did not reassure many viewers. She laughed, shifted in her seat, and dismissed the whole thing as a prank.
But many viewers noticed something else flash across her face first, before she laughed: a quick flicker of discomfort that lasted less than a second. It is a small moment, only seconds on screen, but once noticed, it is hard to ignore. DeGeneres admitted she had arrived an hour early trying to scare Gomez and had placed towels over the cameras, saying, “I was trying to scare you. ” Gomez replied, “You were right.
You messed it up. ” The exchange ended with DeGeneres saying she would get revenge
The broader picture includes documented friendships with people who now face serious allegations, along with the timing of her departure from the country shortly after these controversies emerged. Individually, each connection might not mean much—people’s paths cross in Hollywood all the time. But when placed alongside everything else, these details stop feeling like small coincidences.
They begin to feel like part of a much larger pattern. As her former staffers’ stories spread, that old clip of the birthday party exchange resurfaced, and what had once looked like an awkward moment on television began to appear like something entirely different: a glimpse of someone playing the victim publicly while behaving differently behind closed doors. Once you notice that pattern, you start seeing it everywhere else in this story, too.
Andwhile none of this has been proven in court, and DeGeneres has denied widespread allegations of toxic behavior, the accumulation of details—the art, the alleged Epstein connections, the reported treatment of staff—has left many online unable to look away.
