Margaret Cho is pulling back the curtain on her rocky past with Ellen DeGeneres — and she’s not holding back.
During a recent appearance on The Kelly Mantle Show podcast, the 56-year-old comedian reflected on years of cold encounters with DeGeneres, 67, dating back to their early days on the stand-up circuit.
“Ellen was really weird and not nice to me for most of my career,” Cho said. “I opened for her in the 1980s when she was already a headliner in comedy clubs — way before she became famous.”
But according to Cho, things only got more awkward once DeGeneres rose to stardom.
“When I’d appear on her talk show in the 2000s, she acted like we’d never met,” Cho recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Bitch, what?’ That’s weird. We go way back. It’s so creepy.”
One moment in particular still stings for Cho — a segment she filmed with music legend David Bowie that was later mysteriously edited out of the show.
“He was raving about a Chinese Emperor outfit I wore the night before,” Cho explained. “Then Ellen cut the whole thing. I was so mad. One of the producers, who’s a close friend, actually called to tell me, ‘I can’t believe she did this, but she cut it out of the show. But you need to know — Bowie was obsessed with your outfit. He said your name like God himself.’”
While Cho admits it might’ve just been an editorial decision, she said it still felt personal. “Maybe it was for time, but I’m going to take it personally just because I decided to.”
DeGeneres has not responded to Cho’s remarks. The former daytime TV titan ended The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2022 after 19 seasons amid backlash over reports of a toxic workplace. She now resides in the U.K. with her wife, Portia de Rossi.