‘The Kelly Clarkson Show:’ Reports Of Toxic Work Environment
Former employees at The Kelly Clarkson Show have reported that the show has a toxic work environment. Some former staffers (and one current employee) have spoken out in a new article on Rolling Stone. Reports are that Kelly is not the problem and has “no clue how unhappy her staff is.”
Behind the scenes, former employees say they were overworked and underpaid and that working at the show was traumatizing and damaging to their mental health. According to the publication, several former show employees spoke them on the condition that they remain anonymous. The former employees say the toxic behavior behind the scenes starts with executive producer and showrunner Alex Duda, who previously served as an executive producer on Steve Harvey and The Tyra Banks Show. One employee said, “I think Alex Duda’s a monster. I have a friend who’s an executive producer who warned me about taking this job because, apparently, she has done this on every show she’s worked on.”
As for Clarkson, one former employee says, “Kelly is fantastic. She is a person who never treats anyone with anything but dignity and is incredibly appreciative. I would be shocked if she knew. I’d be floored if she knew the staff wasn’t getting paid for two weeks of Christmas hiatus. The Kelly that I interacted with and that everyone knows would probably be pretty aghast to learn that.”
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Another former employee who worked in TV said, “This is by far the worst experience I’ve ever had in my entire life. It deterred me from wanting to work in daytime [television] ever again. When I say I was traumatized, I was really traumatized.”
A third former employee says they had a follow-up call with HR after their exit interview regarding their issues with two producers. The HR representative told them they found the producers’ behavior unprofessional, but ultimately, those same producers ended up getting promotions. They noted, “I don’t know what HR does at that show, frankly. Nothing of consequence happened.”
NBC did not provide a comment to Roling Stone on the story, and Kelly Clarkson and the show’s executive producer, Alex Duda, did not respond to separate requests for comment.
The Kelly Clarkson Show leads in ratings boasting 1.4 million daily viewers as of December 2022.
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