After a decade old video resurfaced on YouTube, fans are calling out Ellen DeGeneres for borderline ‘bullying’.
Let’s take it back to 2012, the music is banging and Taylor Swift is still singing largely country tinged music, and now she’s on The Ellen Show again.
As a former regular guest, Swift was probably best known for being the one celebrity who DeGeneres would go to great lengths to scare.
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From putting people in a box next to her, to then scaring her in her dressing room, there was no end to the pranks played on the pop star.
But it was all fun and games until her love life was unceremoniously brought up in an interview… more than once.
In the resurfaced clip, DeGeneres can be heard digging into Swift by indicating that she's been dating Zac Efron, even though the singer denied it.
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The host said: "You were here with your boyfriend Zac Efron last time," to which the singer replied: "Erm, we actually never dated."
"Yes you did," quipped DeGeneres, and the audience chuckled.
Even though Swift seemed to be pretty frustrated by this, DeGeneres didn't let up and continued to tell her that she did actually date Efron, and then went on to show her a slideshow of photos.
These photos were all of Swift with various celebrities.
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Then, if that wasn’t enough, Swift was told to ring a bell if she's dated any of the men on the screen.
DeGeneres said it was because she wanted to know who inspired the song, 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together'.
But Swift wasn’t playing ball so instead, DeGeneres took hold of the bell and rang it on every photo.
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Looking back on the moment now, viewers are stunned and wrote about it underneath the video.
One person said: “You can see she felt uncomfortable and clearly didn’t want to play the game.. she said 'I dont want to'. Like 3x and ugh this was horrible to watch honestly.. i felt bad for her.”
Another wrote: “I'm not really a fan of Taylor but that's really mean. I feel bad for her. I'd be so embarrassed in her shoes.”
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And someone else said: “Why is this not being considered as bullying in a serious way?”
Even model Emily Ratajkowski went on to describe the video as 'f**ked up', saying: "She’s literally begging her to stop."
However, Swift would go on to get her own back for previous grief she received alongside Efron in the form of a special song on the show.
The pair appeared on the show together before the clip was filmed and Swift explained how she had been teaching him the guitar, particularly the chords of 'Pumped Up Kicks' by Foster The People.
Except, they changed the lyrics to make allusions about their experiences on the show.
Efron sang: "Ellen works a long day. Giving weird interviews in a slick, cool sweater. And it gets kind of weird, yeah, callin' us out, like we're boyfriend and girlfriend.
"But it's not just 'cause we're just sitting here and we got cat videos and dance on Betty White and stuff. And it's always gonna be weird - 'Cause this song is all about Ellen and Swift, yeah."
Swift then sang about how she was on the show eight times and was frequently made to be scared, as well as DeGeneres asking her about who she's dating.
They then launched into the chorus which noted how 'really weird' it is 'every time' they both come on the show - 'all because of Ellen'.
These moments came years before DeGeneres faced allegations of creating a toxic workplace, disrespecting the boundaries of an interviewee, and sexualising a guest. This resulted in her talk show coming to an end in 2022.
UNILAD contacted the representatives of Ellen DeGeneres and Taylor Swift for comment.
Topics: Ellen DeGeneres, Taylor Swift, Celebrity, YouTube
Britt Jones