In honor of her mother, Betty’s, birthday, Ellen grabbed a pair of clippers to give Betty a birthday gift the 90-year-old woman won’t soon forget. Not everybody approved of Ellen’s actions, however, and they weren’t shy about letting their opinions fly online.
Ellen posted the offending video to her Instagram last week, but the fervor over it hasn’t yet settled. In the video, which is captioned, “90th birthday present for my Mama,” Ellen had the trimmers out and humming already, much to her mother’s seeming discontent. After a few noises of protest from Betty, Ellen remarked, “It’s not that short, Mother, it’s just taking the edges off. I promise you.”
Betty jokingly asked, “Why am I letting you do this?” To which Ellen replied, “Cause it’s your birthday.” Betty then began singing “Happy Birthday” to herself in a somewhat sad fashion. The video then cuts to Betty sitting in the same chair, but with noticeably less hair. “You don’t use any scissors?” asked the 90-year-old mother.
90th birthday present for my Mamma. pic.twitter.com/GNwpS0dvJ1
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) May 21, 2020
“Believe me, you don’t want me using any scissors,” the talk show host retorted. Once it was all said and done, Betty didn’t quite care for her new look. When Ellen asked if her mom liked the new hairdo, Betty answered immediately and honestly, “No, not yet, but when I wash it…Oh! You really cut it short!” Hopefully Betty will get used to the shorter locks, but some people online have called Ellen out for what one commenter called “elder abuse.”
The comment section in the Daily Mail’s article about the quarantine haircut was especially harsh against Ellen, with one person commenting, “Poor Mums hair was so nice before and she didn’t want it cutting certainly not shaving, it looks awful now.” Yet another anonymous comment read, “Why did she do that to her mom, just shows how much of a control freak she is – Ellen’s way or the highway.”
Another commenter claimed Ellen was using Betty “for publicity,” though the talk show host couldn’t quite pull it off, apparently, since the commenter added that Ellen’s actions didn’t make her “look like a caring person” since she’d used “her mother like that.” Twitter was a bit kinder towards Ellen, but a few occasional mean messages popped up.
Though plenty of people online took issue with Betty’s new haircut, we here at Gossip Cop think it looks pretty nice. And clearly, spending time with her daughter on her 90th birthday was probably the best present Betty could have asked for. During this time when hair salons and barber shops are mostly closed, it’s a little nice to see celebrities join the ranks of normal folk trying to cut hair for the first time. Some people take everything so seriously, even lighthearted posts like the one Ellen made for her mother.