Emily Ratajkowski is defending Taylor Swift after an old clip from The Ellen DeGeneres Show went viral on TikTok. The 2012 interview with the comedian was connected to a more recent comment from the pop icon on the social media platform. Ellen DeGeneres had her show canceled last year, following allegations of abusive behavior on set and a wider analysis by viewers of how she conducted herself with guests. DeGeneres was somewhat known for pushing her interviewees in a way that made them and some fans uncomfortable.
Swift’s example went viral when a TikToker stitched two clips of the musician together, one in which she is speaking with Zane Lowe in 2019 on Apple Music’s Beats 1, another of her appearance on DeGeneres’ show in 2012. It’s implied that Swift is critiquing DeGeneres while talking to Lowe, though she doesn’t get specific.
In her interview with Lowe, Swift talks about how when she was younger, people were often “reducing” her to who she dated, “making slideshows of my dating life and putting people in there that I had sat next to at a party once.”
She added, “It’s a way to take a woman who is doing her job and succeeding at doing her job and making things, and in a way, it’s figuring out how to completely minimize that skill.”
The 2012 clip shows DeGeneres playing a slideshow of photos with Swift and men she was associated with romantically, including Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber. The former talk show host demands Swift admit who she’s writing about in her songs.
“I don’t want to,” Swift replies. “They’ll send me angry emails, and I don’t want to get them.”
As it continues, Swift exclaims, “Stop it, stop it, stop! This makes me feel so bad about myself. Every time I come up here, you put a different dude up there on the screen, and it just makes me really question what I stand for as a human being.”
Emily Ratajkowski is one of the many commenters on the viral TikTok, writing, “This is so f–ked up. She’s literally begging her to stop.”
Since her show ended, DeGeneres has apologized for the allegations from her former staffers.
Aimée Lutkin is the weekend editor at ELLE.com. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire and more. Her first book, The Lonely Hunter, will be released by Dial Press in February 2022.
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