R31, I will tell you an Ellen story that happened to my best friend's childhood friend. I think this perfectly demonstrates who Ellen is.
"Tom" was in his early 20s, trying to be an actor, and struggling. Really struggling. He couldn't find a job. He couldn't find a place to live. He was couch surfing. He was super depressed over how hard LA had been for him. Just couldn't quite land on his feet. Despite his best efforts.
Tom loved animals and he finally landed a good enough job working at a high end pet groomers. He also found a great place to live. And even got an agent! Things had finally turned around for him. After two or three years of hard times.
Then Ellen walked into the pet groomers. Now, Tom is hysterically funny. He's super self deprecating. Very quick witted. Massively insecure, but he uses it as fodder for his big gay humor. So there's that. And, again, he truly loves animals. Lives for them.
He and Ellen instantly clicked over both his humor and his love for animals. Can't remember how, but somehow they exchanged numbers. And a strange little friendship started to form. After a few weeks of this, Ellen asked him if he wanted to be her assistant. She said she really liked him and thought they'd be a perfect fit.
Tom was a bit torn. He'd heard stories that Ellen (from me!) could be tough. But she'd been nothing short of great to him so far. He really loved his job, but working for Ellen seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.
He told Ellen about how hard the past few years had been and that he'd finally landed on his feet. He just wanted to make sure she really thought it'd work out for the long run. She eased any fears he might have. Said it would be great.
Assured by this, he put in his two weeks and started working for Ellen. He was SO excited!
She fired him three weeks later. Why? She claimed Portia didn't like him. Even though he and Portia had exactly one interaction and it was nothing short of great.
And that was that. No severance. No letter of rec. I think she even blocked his number. She never spoke to him again, that's for sure.
It was so cold, so cruel, so mean. He swears she planned it all along because he was dumb enough to tell her how he wanted to make sure he would have job security.
No one liked Ellen more than him before all this happened and no one hates her more after.
Oh, he wasn't able to get his pet grooming job back and was so distraught over the ordeal, he left LA and moved back to South Carolina.