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Patrick Warburton has recalled being confronted by Ellen DeGeneres after he turned down a return to her sitcom.
Seinfeld star Warburton appeared on several episodes of Ellen, Degeneres’s ABC series about a neurotic bookstore owner in her thirties, which ran for five seasons from 1994 to 1998.
“They say you’re the flavor of the month, so they keep asking you like, ‘They want you on this show, they want you on this show,’ so I did a guest spot or two on Ellen,” he explained on the latest episode of SiriusXM’s The Spotlight with Jessica Shaw show. “And then they asked me to come back and do another one and I was just kind of done doing guest spots at that time and it was sort of time to move on and I just said I had a conflict, all right? So, that was it.
“Two weeks later, I’m having lunch at a restaurant called Orso in Beverly Hills with a buddy of mine having lunch and Ellen walks up to the table and she goes, ‘Too big to do my show now, huh?’ and I go, ‘No, Ellen.’ I go, ‘I just had a conflict,’ which she probably sensed was just bulls*** and she walked away.
“So it was just interesting, but just sort of knowing her, I realized at that point on, there was a reason why I was never ever gonna be invited on her talk show,” he continued, referring to the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
He added: “She was spurned.”
The Independent has contacted DeGeneres’s representative for comment. Warburton went on to say he is still “a huge fan” of the comedian.
“What I recall working on that show was that as far as crowd work and talking, she was just this remarkable comedian, you know, at the very, very top of the game,” he said. “She was as good as anybody, but it was just weird.”
“It was just weird because when you say you have a conflict and you don’t do something, you seem like you’re gonna be fine with that,” he added. “You don’t expect the star of the show to walk up to you and call you out on your s*** and that’s all it was, and then I always knew, it was like, ‘Oh, Ellen’s got a great show. It’s a lot of fun. I’ll never be on it.’”
Warburton indeed never appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, which aired for 19 seasons before coming to an end in 2022 amid allegations of racism, sexual misconduct, and intimidation behind the scenes.
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DeGeneres apologized on air, and after an investigation by WarnerMedia, three producers were fired.
During a stand-up set in Santa Rosa, California, earlier this month, the former host appeared to hint at her retirement from the entertainment industry.
Asked if she would go back to doing films after the comedy tour ended or if she would like to do theater on Broadway, DeGeneres responded: “Um, no. This is the last time you’re going to see me. After my Netflix special, I’m done.”
Elsewhere during the Santa Rosa stand-up show, DeGeneres said she had been “kicked out of show business for being mean” and confessed that she can be “demanding and impatient and tough.”
She maintained, however, that she is not “mean,” stating: “I am a strong woman. I am many things, but I am not mean.”
