Megastar Madonna Made Mega-Diva Demands On ‘Ellen’ Show

Ellen DeGeneres, host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, recently aired an entire week’s worth of productions featuring megastar Madonna. Ratings for the show soared, but insiders from the show have revealed that working with Madonna for an entire week proved to be difficult. Meeting the demands the pop icon made created quite a stir, and even Ellen found herself growing frustrated, although she advised her staff to do what they could for the sake of the show.

At the end of the stressful week filled with diva demands, one insider told Radar Online that Ellen was “just really glad that it all went over without any major drama and has thanked her staff for being so cooperative.”

One of the difficulties faced during Madonna Week was simply dealing with the star’s entourage. Not only was the number of assistants Madonna brought with her abnormally large, they were also hard to handle.

“Madonna’s posse that she brought along with her for ‘Madonna Week’ was larger than any entourage that has ever come on the show before. They were so obnoxious that it just made for a really awkward time on set.”

Within that large entourage were make-up artists and hair dressers, for which the Ellen show eventually footed the bill.

“She also demanded that the studio pay for her personal make-up and hair people because she would not use the ones that are provided by the show,” the source revealed.

Demands were made — and met — for an entire set of trailers to be devoted to Madonna, and those trailers were to be full of special food requests.

“Because she was there for an entire week, she needed her own set of trailers, which had to be equipped with certain types of health foods that were rather expensive,” the inside source said.

But perhaps the biggest demand was that Madonna insisted on controlling major aspects of the productions, which, according to the source, was incredibly difficult for Ellen, saying, “Ellen is such a control freak. To have to surrender control to someone who wants to call the shots in every situation was incredibly hard for her.”

But difficult or not, Ellen did relinquish control to Madonna, who had no trouble making any adjustments she saw fit.

“Madonna also required that she approve all of the footage that was shot. She also had to change the script to her liking and this is something that was never allowed for anyone that comes on.”

Strain over Madonna’s mega-diva demands allegedly grew over the week, the insider said.

“As much as the ratings soared for the show, even Ellen was quite over it by the end. Ellen and everyone on staff had to, literally, bite their tongues on numerous occasions throughout the week. Madonna felt like everyone should bow down to her because she is Madonna, and the staff was told to just suck it up for the time being because it will pass.”

And indeed it did finally pass, with Madonna Week beginning on Monday, March 16 and ending on Friday, March 20. It seems as though the entire production crew of the Ellen show — and, perhaps, Ellen herself — heaved a giant sigh of relief when it all wrapped up.

“It was incredibly hard to deal with one full week of Madonna,” summed up the production insider.

What do you think? Does a megastar status excuse mega-diva demands, or were Madonna’s demands outrageous?

Despite diva-like demands, there is no question that Madonna has earned her reputation as a pop icon and star. For more on Madonna’s week-long stint on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, click here to hear her beautiful acoustical performance while on the show, or here to watch her play “Never Have I Ever” with another pop sensation — Justin Bieber.

[Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images]