Ellen DeGeneres’s record label was poorly run, Charlie Puth & Greyson Chance claim

The Ellen Show is thankfully over. The last episodes of Ellen DeGeneres’s daytime talk show aired in May and she went out with a whimper, not a bang. The Ellen Show limped along in its final season, mostly because Ellen had a contract and she didn’t want to go out in a flurry of controversy about how deeply unpleasant she is and how she terrorized her staff. I have no idea how Ellen is spending her time since her show ended, but it looks like she hasn’t kept up with anyone from her now-defunct record label. Her record label was called (lowercase) eleveneleven. The label was tied to Interscope Geffen A&M. Both Charlie Puth and Greyson Chance have now gone on the record about how poorly run the label was.

Charlie Puth claims he was ghosted by Ellen DeGeneres’ eleveneleven record label. The singer, 30, spoke about his own experience with the Interscope Geffen A&M Records-distributed label after fellow songwriter Greyson Chance alleged the “opportunistic” comedian “completely abandoned” him.

“We both have different experiences, me versus Greyson. But I do agree with him that no one was present, certainly, after the creation of my first demo EP,” Puth, who was signed to the short-lived record label in 2011, said on the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. “Not putting any blame on one person, but from a collective … all the people that were in that room, they just disappeared. I didn’t hear from anybody.”

Puth clarified that he never personally discussed any of these feelings with DeGeneres, noting that he didn’t find a problem with her allegedly toxic personality. “People describe Ellen as rude. I’ve never experienced that,” the “One Call Away” singer said, referencing allegations that DeGeneres, 64, was “manipulative” behind-the-scenes and that her daytime talk show was a toxic workplace. “Maybe she likes me.”

Sources close to DeGeneres’ team told the outlet that they “don’t recall” any of this happening with Puth. A rep for DeGeneres did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

The new interview comes just weeks after Chance claimed to Rolling Stone that he’s “never met someone more manipulative, more self-centered and more blatantly opportunistic” than the talk show host.

The “Good as Gold” singer, 25, first met DeGeneres when he appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in May 2010 after a video of him performing Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” in front of his schoolmates went viral. DeGeneres signed him as her record label’s first act, with Chance – who was just 12 years old at the time – claiming she told him, “I’m going to protect you. I’m going to be here for you. We’re going to do this together.” She gifted him $10,000, a new piano and set him up with high-profile managers, agents, a publicist and more.

However, Chance alleged to Rolling Stone that DeGeneres quickly became “domineering” and “too controlling” with every aspect of his career – demanding everything from what he should wear to which other artists she thought he should resemble. Chance further alleged that DeGeneres disappeared in 2012 following low ticket sales for his various tours and his music underperforming. He claims he never heard back from DeGeneres after Interscope ultimately dropped him and key people from his team.

“I couldn’t get ahold of her. Couldn’t talk to her,” Chance alleged, despite returning to “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” for occasional appearances in the years following. “Whenever I would come on the show, it was such a fake smile.”

[From Page Six]

I’m reminded of the stories about what it was like to work on her show, and how out-of-touch she was with the daily operations, leaving it to abusive producers to create an extremely toxic workplace, which actually suited her just fine. While I think there was probably an element of that with eleveneleven, it’s probably more like “Ellen and her people simply got bored and walked away.” And they left artists like Greyson and Charlie in the lurch. Ellen seems like an exceptionally bad manager who surrounds herself – and empowers – some really toxic people.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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1 Response to “Ellen DeGeneres’s record label was poorly run, Charlie Puth & Greyson Chance claim”

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  1. Snuffles says:

    I think Ellen got in over her head very quickly trying to dip her toes in the music business and just abandoned ship. I mean, I feel for Greyson but I think Charlie had more realistic expectations or figured shit out faster and moved on. Greyson seems to have put all of his eggs into Ellen’s basket and couldn’t find a way to move forward.

    I’m not exonerating Ellen from being bad at her job, but Greyson isn’t the first or last artist to enter a bad record deal. Or to have a music executive promise the world to them.