Margaret Cho Claims Ellen DeGeneres Was ‘Not Nice’ to Her For ‘Most of Her Career’

Margaret Cho didn’t hold back her honest opinion when asked about fellow comedian Ellen DeGeneres.

On the June 18th episode of The Kelly Mantle Show, Cho dished on her experience with DeGeneres. “It’s so weird now, [the] public perception of her is more true to … she’s mean,” the actress shared. “She was like a mean girl, kind of, but also she would be really nice.”

Cho stated that she believed DeGeneres — who has been married to Portia de Rossi since 2008 — didn’t like her because of her previous partners. “I think she always had negative feelings toward me because her girlfriends and wives always liked me,” said Cho. “There’s a kind of woman [that] loves a female comic.”

The All-American Girl alum continued to describe DeGeneres as being “really weird” and “not nice to me for most of my career.”

Although Cho had opened for DeGeneres in the 1980s, the Fire Island star claimed the TV personality wasn’t warm to her when she was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

“She acted like we just met,” she told podcast host Kelly Mantle. “And I’m like, ‘B**ch, what?’ That’s weird. We go way back.”

Cho claimed that DeGeneres also cut a portion of an interview with David Bowie — where he allegedly talked positively about Cho — from an episode in which the rockstar appeared.

“It’s so creepy and weird, but also, the other thing was, David Bowie had been on the show, and he was so excited that the night before that, I had come to his show wearing this giant Chinese emperor outfit,” she said. “He was really thrilled about it, and he talked at length about it. And she cut it out of the show, which made me so mad.”

Cho claimed she was notified about the change by a producer.

“The producer, who’s a really good friend of mine, had to call me and tell me, ‘I can’t believe she did this, but she cut it out of the show. You need to know that he was going on and on about your outfit. He loves you,’” Cho said, adding that she doesn’t know if it was “personal” or “for time.”

“Still,” Cho continued, “I’m gonna take it personally because I decided to.”

This isn’t the first time that DeGeneres has gotten some unfavorable feedback from her peers and coworkers. In 2020, she came under fire when it was alleged that The Ellen DeGeneres Show — which ran for 19 seasons before ending in 2002 — was a toxic workplace.