Margaret Cho revealed a decades-long rift with fellow standup comedian Ellen DeGeneres.
“Ellen was really weird and not nice to me for most of my career,” Cho, 56, declared on the “Kelly Mantle Show” podcast on Friday, June 20. “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 added, “I’m like, ‘Bitch, 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.
“It made me so mad,” she remembered. “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 it [cut] was for time. But still, I’m going to take it personally just because I decided to.”
Us Weekly has reached out to DeGeneres’ representative for comment.
Cho is not the only comedian to publicly take issue with DeGeneres. Rosie O’Donnell exclusively told Us in May that, while she holds no “malice” towards DeGeneres, they had “some stuff in the past that [they] never resolved.”
“Not in any way as, as partners or lovers or anything like that, just as friends and comedians, but I wish her the best. I seriously do,” she told Us. “I think that there’s enough room in the world for all of the gay comedians, and we all need to stick together because gay people are the next group to be threatened. And the way they attack trans people is absolutely terrifying. If people don’t understand that they’re a vital part of the LBGTQIA+ community, that’s tragic.”
Portia de Rossi, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell in 2006. Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic
O’Donnell admitted she was surprised to hear that DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, moved from the U.S. to the English countryside following President Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2024. (O’Donnell relocated with her 12-year-old child, Clay, to Ireland prior to Trump’s inauguration in January.)
“I’ve never really known Ellen to say anything political in her life, so I was surprised to read that she left because of President Trump. Like, that shocked me, actually,” O’Donnell admitted to Us. “I’ve been a political person my whole life, not better or worse, it’s just a different way to be in the world.”
The former Rosie O’Donnell Show host continued, “I was very clear about the reason why I was leaving, and I don’t think it came as a surprise to anyone. We’re not really in each other’s worlds, and it’s been kind of awkward but you know what? I wish her the best. I wish that she has peace and love in her life and that she is OK.”
Kathy Griffin has also publicly feuded with DeGeneres for years, including recently opening up about their falling out via her YouTube channel.
“I have a loathing for her that is epic,” she said in April. “I know a lot of it is jealousy. I get it. She’s way more successful than I’ll ever be. … You’re welcome, Ellen. That’s way nicer than anything you’ve ever said about me or ever will.”
DeGeneres has largely stayed out of the public eye since moving to the U.K., aside from sharing occasional social media posts from her English farmhouse.
