Ellen DeGeneres, talk show host, comedienne and the voice of everyones favourite forgetful Blue Tang fish in Disney’s Finding Nemo and its upcoming sequel Finding Dory, has found herself in a bit of hot water after she purposefully mispronounced a womans name to make a breast joke.
Ellen, a successful comedian whose jokes rarely offend, is being sued after by a 35 year old woman from Georgia after the chat show host joked about her name.
The woman in question, A real estate agent named Titi Pierce, said that she was subject to “immediate ridicule” after one of her Real Estate Adverts was used as a joke on Ellen’s segment “What’s wrong with these ads…and these signs?”. During the segment, Ellen drew attention to Pierce’s name and referred to her as ‘Titty Pierce”, even though the correct pronunciation of the name would be “TeTe”.
“In all of her 35 years of life, no one has ever referred to Ms Pierce as “titty” until the Defendant did so on February 22, 2016 on national television.” the legal complaint reads, before going on to point out that Ellen’s failure to blur out Ms Pierce’s telephone number from the advert when Ellen showed it on her show lead to a barrage of phone calls that were deemed “ridiculing and harassing”. To make matters worse, Ms Pierce and her lawyer allege that the 35 year old was attending a family funeral at the time the calls started, understandably causing her great upset.
Ms Pierce is seeking monetary damages as a result of the ridicule she was subject to by the show and the subsequent harassing phone calls, as well as the permanent removal of the segment off the air.
Neither Ellen DeGeneres, the shows producers or Warner Brothers have yet to respond or comment on the law suit.
What do you think? Is Titi overreacting, or does she have a point? Let us know on Twitter @CelebMix, or in the comments below.