Funny woman Ellen DeGeneres has landed in hot water over a controversial joke that aired during a segment of her show called, “What’s Wrong With These Ads … And These Signs?”
In the clip, which involves the talk show host sharing real-life humorous signs and advertisements spotted by her viewers, Ellen featured a photo of real estate agent Titi Pierce’s sign, which included the 35-year-old’s real phone number.
Georgia-based Titi, whose first name is pronounced ‘Tee Tee’, is now taking Warner Bros Entertainment Inc (the Ellen show’s parent company) to court over the segment, which she said exposed her to “immediate ridicule” and emotional distress.
Watch the segment below – story continues after the video
The lawsuit read: “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.”
It then led to “immediate ridicule” from the audience. She is also claiming that they intentionally inflicted emotional distress.
The Emmy award winning show’s producers have also been hit with the lawsuit as they didn’t blur out the Georgian woman’s mobile number on the show, to which she claims that she then received “ridiculing and harassing” phone calls while she was attending a family funeral.
Her name, Titi, is of Nigerian origin which translates to ‘flower’.
The lawsuit is seeking monetary damages and demanding they never show the segment again – on TV or social media.
This story originally appeared on Australian Women’s Weekly
