Greyson Chance has opened up about his experience with TV show host Ellen DeGeneres, the woman who promised to help him launch his career as a child star.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Greyson claimed Ellen was “manipulative,” “self-centered,” and “controlling” the whole time he was in touch with her.
Chance first appeared on The Ellen Show when he was just 12, following the viral video of the then-sixth grader singing Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi while playing the piano effortlessly during a school performance.
The Portraits singer was called to the show only a week after the video went viral, and Ellen gifted him a brand new piano, as well as co-created a record label to launch his music career.
However, things weren’t as good as they initially seemed. Chance said that DeGeneres became a “hidden eye,” watching over every detail of his career and life.
“My whole week, my whole month, my whole year could change [with] one text message from her,” Chance said. “That was horrible.” He added that “if she had an opinion of any sort, the whole thing changed.”
He told the magazine that Ellen was controlling his touring schedules, and interfered in pretty much everything he did, watched, or even wore. “She would come in and look at a rack, yell at stylists, berate people in front of me and say, ‘This is what you’re wearing on the show,’” Chance recalled. “She was just degrading to people.”
He also recalled the time his second record on DeGeneres’ label underperformed, stating that the host dropped him, and when he did appear on her show, she barely talked to him at all.
“I couldn’t get a hold of her. Couldn’t talk to her,” he told the magazine. “Whenever I would come on the show, it was such a fake smile. She wouldn’t even ask, ‘How are you doing? How are you holding up?’ It was just like, ‘Here’s what we’re going to talk about. We’ll see you on there.’”
When Chance returned to the Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2019, he felt once again used by his former mentor. In the interview, she stated how proud she was of Chance for coming out as gay two years earlier.
“She had nothing to do with that. … [When I came out,] I hadn’t spoken to her in years,” Chance shared. “That’s so messed up, that you’re now showing the world as if we’re so tight. We’re so good. And behind the scenes, you are this insanely manipulative person.”
“When I look at the interviews and I look at my eyes, I can see so much anxiety. I can just see so much PTSD because I’m there holding on for dear life going, ‘I need this TV gig,’“ Chance added. “I was 100 percent faking it, and [I felt like] she’s 100 percent faking it with me, too.”