Woman Sues Over Ellen DeGeneres’ Breast Joke
A Georgia woman has filed a federal lawsuit, saying TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres humiliated her by mispronouncing her name and turning it into a breast joke.
Titi Pierce, who said she’s a Robins Air Force Base engineer and a real-estate agent, says her first name is the Nigerian name for “flower” and it’s pronounced “Tee Tee” “as grammar dictates.”
Her lawsuit says that Ellen used a picture of her real-estate sign, featuring her name, in a comedy segment titled, “What’s Wrong With These Ads…. and These Signs?”
Ellen read her name as “titty Pierce,” causing “immediate ridicule and raucous laughter” from the audience. The show also included Titi’s cell phone number in the picture used, which led to her receiving harassing and threatening calls at all hours of the day and night, while she was out of town for a family funeral.
She and her husband have also faced ridicule in their town, and she says she reached out to Ellen to complain. This led to her number being blurred out in a copy of the segment that was posted on the show’s website. But it was visible again when the show was repeated in April, and Titi received harassing phone calls and more ridicule.
The lawsuit claims that DeGeneres and Warner Brothers defamed her, invaded her privacy and intentionally inflicted distress. Titi’s asking for damages from Warner Brothers and a jury trial. She also doesn’t want the segment to air again.