Ellen DeGeneres Slammed For Comparing Mansion Quarantine To ‘Being In Jail’

Today in which celebrity embarrasses themselves in quarantine: Ellen DeGeneres would like your attention.

The daytime talk show host relaunched her eponymous talk show after a three-week hiatus amid the coronavirus pandemic and offered up the expected platitudes (“I want to set you free”) and some celebrity guests (John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, of course). 

But she also managed to spark some backlash for joking, from her palatial mansion in Southern California, that “One thing I’ve learned from being in quarantine is that … this is like being in jail.” 

“Mostly because I’ve been wearing the same clothes for 10 days and everyone in here is gay,” she quipped in a YouTube video that’s racked up hundreds of thousands of views. 

While making the underfunded and crumbling criminal justice system the punchline of a joke isn’t the best move in any climate, the incarcerated population is particularly in jeopardy during the ongoing public health crisis, as coronavirus sweeps through prisons across the country at an alarming rate. 

Amid calls for nonviolent offenders to be released on bail during the pandemic, steadily increasing numbers of inmates have tested positive for the respiratory virus. The Rikers Island jail complex in New York has been one of the hardest-hit facilities, with confirmed cases for 167 inmates and 137 staff members, as social distancing is a near impossibility due to overcrowding.

On Sunday, an inmate at the Rikers became the first in a city jail to die after contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

So, naturally, DeGeneres’ joke didn’t sit well with many on social media. 

Her prison crack notwithstanding, DeGeneres offered her gratitude toward essential workers and others on the frontlines during the coronavirus crisis.