Ellen gives her audience gifts (“swag”) when they come to her shows. This time, she set up a display of Ellen merchandise with a sign that told her audience members to take one item. They did not know that they were being filmed.
Ellen comes on air and begins to tell the audience that they are honest people as they were being videotaped while they were picking up their item.
She then shows a video of a lady who could not decide between a mug and a hat so she takes the mug and says “I will just buy this” as she sets the hat down. Ellen rewards the lady in the video by giving her the hat that she originally wanted.
Then Ellen shows the video of another lady who picks up several items and takes them. She even tells her friend that is with her to “hurry up” and that “no one will know” if they were to take more than one item. Of course, she did not know the camera was capturing her stealing. 
Ellen proceeds to reprimand the lady and the lady says that she took the extra items for her sister. Ellen was not having it and puts the lady in what she called “Ellen Jail.”
Ellen proceeds to tell the lady that she needs to learn a lesson from this and that she should be an honest and good person. The audience members were laughing throughout the entire segment, but her gag wasn’t without some controversy.
One YouTuber said, “Ellen was so wrong here. She purposely sets up her audience/fans to a treat, just to tempt them to steal something, secretly records them, and when they do, they are publicly shamed on live tv.” While another person, obviously taking Ellen’s side countered, “That’s a hard lesson to learn, but she at least she learned it.”
Ouch! Do you think Ellen was being cruel or was it deserved? Watch then join the discussion at the bottom of this page.
What do you think now? Did Ellen’s sketch backfire or was there a lesson to be learned here? Scroll down and add your comment at the bottom of this page.
