Hedda Muskat is a former producer on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. She spoke about her experience working on the Emmy Award-Winning talk show.
In an interview with The Wrap, Muskat shared that the show was under development process when she got on the board in 2003. The former producer revealed that within one and a half years since she joined the show, a young male producer was introduced on the show that sidelined her.
Muskat claimed that she was gradually given tasks that were less important comparatively such as preparing the guests she arranged for the show, write segments for herself, and emerge on the sets for greeting purposes.
Muskat recalled that one day she had a meeting with Ed Glavin, a producer on the show. In the meeting, Glavin praised Muskat's work as everyone loved segments written by her. However, Glavin asked Muskat to reveal all her sources.
The former producer said that the reason she was hired in the first place was her sources that took 18 years to assemble. As soon as she refused, Muskat disclosed how she felt being kicked out at any moment. However, the former executive went on and revealed another incident during a staff meeting.
She explained that in this meeting introduction of new employees was supposed to happen. Although Glavin yelled at a crew member openly without hesitating about others being in the same room.
"He just went off on them. His whole face turned red…We were stunned. You could just see everybody's faces go stiff. We're professionals; we're adults. We don't need a dog to get us to do our jobs," She added.
After working on the show for a couple of years, Muskat called her entire experience as a "culture of fear". Right before The Ellen DeGeneres Show won Daytime Emmy Awards being an Outstanding Talk Show, Muskat was fired from the show in 2004.
After Muskat's disclosure, media outlets reached Glavin for his story regarding the allegations but hasn't replied yet. Previously, when the current executive producers such as Andy Lassner and Mary Connelly along with Glavin were accused of the toxic work environment as per BuzzFeed’s article, they immediately released a combined statement.
They said how truly heartbroken they felt after the claims and they apologize that even a single person working on the show had any kind of bad experience. However, they emphasized that it is not Ellen's mission while they took the entire responsibility of the show.