Ellen DeGeneres removes YouTube video in which she compares social distancing to 'being in jail'
After suspending production on her daytime talk show due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Ellen DeGeneres turned to YouTube to kick off the “at-home edition” of her show.
For the 62-year-old comedian, this meant speaking in front of a camera while seated in her luxurious living room, outfitted with floor-to-ceiling windows facing a lush yard. “One thing that I’ve learned from being in quarantine is that people — this is like being in jail, is what it is,” DeGeneres said in the video.
The comparison to jail, made between DeGeneres’s trademark pleasantries, struck many as tone-deaf, given the current state of American prisons — plus the fact that, as Vulture noted, DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, have purchased multiple mansions with price tags in the multi-millions.
“What a great look for Ellen as thousands of people sit in actual jail cells just hoping for the best without soap and basic protections,” tweeted Variety television critic Caroline Framke. Last week, the top doctor at Rikers Island referred to the New York jail as a “public health disaster unfolding before our eyes.”
Another Twitter user described the joke as “unconscionable, especially while people are literally dying of covid because they are in jail.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/04/08/ellen-degeneres-jail-coronavirus-video-backlash/
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