Karl Stefanovic from the Today show made it clear he was not a fan of Ellen DeGeneres’ recent lacklustre apology to her fans over allegations that her show harboured a toxic workplace environment – but Karl’s friend Kyle Sandilands took his words personally.
“Oh shut up, Karl. I’ll ring him up today and chew his a**e out,” Kyle, 49, snapped on his KIIS 106.5 breakfast radio show.
“WHAT are you going to do?” asked Kyle’s co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.
“No, that term is a saying…” Kyle quickly explained, to which Jackie replied: “I don’t think Karl will understand what that term is!”
Stefanovic and his co-host Allison Langdon were unimpressed by Ellen’s apology, as evidenced in Today show segment on Tuesday morning.
“You could tell she wasn’t comfortable delivering it, Langdon said to Nine’s U.S. correspondent Amelia Adams. “She got the tone completely wrong.
“If that was a male talk show host and he was opening the show to address allegations of sexual harassment and bullying, and he made jokes about it, we wouldn’t cop it as an audience.
“But somehow because it’s Ellen and she is a comedian that is okay.”
Karl then explained his opinion: “Ellen has brought me so much enjoyment over the years.
“I love watching her, and I love her delivery, but I think that monologue at the start kind of highlighted that she is not as connected as she once was to the people, like myself, who are such great fans of hers.
“Maybe it’s about her going away and trying to re-establish that connection with the fans and the people who she really always looked after. They came first.”
