The Kelly Mantle Show
Margaret Cho is airing out long-held frustrations with Ellen DeGeneres — revealing a decades-long rift that left her feeling dismissed and disrespected.
Cho appeared on “The Kelly Mantle Show” podcast on Friday and didn’t hold back while recounting her uncomfortable dynamic with the former daytime talk show host.
“Ellen was really weird and not nice to me for most of my career,” Cho said. “I opened for her in the 1980s, when she was a headliner in comedy clubs. Later, when I would do her talk show in the 2000s, she would act like we just met!”
Cho said, “I’m like, ‘B****, what?’ That’s weird. We go way back. It’s so creepy and weird!”
She recalled an incident that allegedly occurred when she attended a David Bowie concert while wearing a giant Chinese emperor outfit. According to Cho, Bowie complimented her outfit during an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” the next day, but the entire anecdote was cut from the episode.
Cho said it made her so mad. “The producer, who was a really good friend of mine, had to call and tell me, ‘I can’t believe she did this but she cut it out of the show. But you need to know that he was going on and on about your outfit! God said your name.'”
Cho insisted, “[It’s] so rude! I don’t know if it was personal, maybe [the cut] was for time. But still, I’m going to take it personally just because I decided to.”
Cho is not the only comedian to publicly take issue with DeGeneres. Rosie O’Donnell and Kathy Griffin have also spoken out about feuding with the former talk show host in the past.
We reached out to Ellen’s rep for comment … so far, no word back.
