On Wednesday, Ellen DeGeneres announced that she would be ending her daytime talk show in 2022, once the 19th season concludes. While the news might have come as a surprise to some of her fans, for anyone who has been paying attention—either to her ratings or the scandals that have hit the show—the decision seemed to be a long time coming.
While DeGeneres’s ratings have been slipping for years (which isn’t that uncommon in the daytime talk show landscape), they’ve taken a much harder hit in the wake of three of the show’s top producers being fired in August 2020 following accusations of sexual misconduct. Not to mention additional reports of The Ellen DeGeneres Show fostering a toxic workplace and the star herself not being quite as nice as she appears on-screen. All of which is to say: It’s time for a little shakeup.
The good news is that it looks as if NBC executives are reportedly casting a very interested eye in actor/comedian Tiffany Haddish’s way to fill the vacancy left by DeGeneres and her awkward dance breaks. According to a senior NBC source who spoke to Page Six on the condition of anonymity: “Tiffany is a favorite… She’s top of the list to get a daytime show—she’s a fresh voice.”
Haddish is also a proven quantity—and not just at the box office. In addition to filling in for DeGeneres a couple of times in the past year, Haddish has also hosted Kids Say The Darndest Things. Between that and her roles in hit movies like the surprise hit Girls Trip (2017) and her voice work in The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part and The Secret Life of Pets 2 (both 2019), Haddish has proven herself as an adept comedian who knows how to appeal to audiences of all ages.
As of right now, neither Haddish nor her management team has made any comments on the rumors.
(Via Page Six)
