Margaret Cho has spoken out on her experiences with fellow queer comedian Ellen DeGeneres. And the recollections she has are not good.

On a recent episode of The Kelly Mantle Show podcast Cho described DeGeneres as ‘somebody that I’ve known for such a long time’ adding that ‘the public perception of her is more true’ now, referring to the backlash DeGeneres experienced after allegations that her show The Ellen DeGeneres show was in fact a toxic workplace, in direct opposition of her ‘be kind’ mantra.

‘She just wasn’t nice to me,’ Cho said. ‘I don’t know what her problem was.’

Cho referred to DeGeneres as ‘mean’. “She was like, a mean girl,’ she said. ‘But also she would be real nice. I think she always had kind of negative feelings towards me because her girlfriends and wives always liked me… There’s a kind of woman [who] loves a female comic.’

The comedian opened up further about her history with DeGeneres, and the ways in which she would pretend that they’d just met, when they in fact went way back. ‘Ellen was really weird and not nice to me for most of my career. I opened for her in the 1980s, when she was a headliner in comedy clubs and way before her big fame. So then later, when I would do her talk show in the 2000s, she acted like we just met… ‘And I’m like, bitch, what? Like, that’s weird. We go way back. It’s so creepy and weird.’

Cho reflected that this behaviour from DeGeneres has made her feel shut out within the industry by someone who was viewed as a LGBTQIA+ pioneer when it came to representation and visibility.

‘It was like she erased me,’ she described, adding that her experience of being a queer Asian comic was that white LGBTQIA+ voices were largely prioritised in mainstream media. Cho added that those that didn’t fit this mould were excluded – an experience that queer women of colour like herself often experienced.

‘I was the only one,’ she said. ‘The only Asian American, the only queer Asian person in comedy… Even when I was there, I was invisible. There was no space for me to belong.’

Fans have felt impacted by Cho’s story, with one commenting online:’She deserves to be remembered for what she’s done, not just what she had to survive.’

Cho also aired a grievance she had during an appearance from David Bowie on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

‘The night before, I had come to his show wearing this giant Chinese emperor outfit. He was really thrilled about it and he talked at length about it. And she cut it out of the show, which made me so mad,’ she said of DeGeneres.

‘The producer, who is a really good friend of mine, had to call me and tell me, “I can’t believe she did this, she cut it out of the show. But you need to know that he was going on and on about your outfit. He loves you. God said your name,”’ she explained.

‘I don’t know if it was personal, maybe it was for time,’ Cho added. ‘But still, I’m going to take it personally just because I decided to.’

During the opening night of her Ellen’s Last Stand … Up Tour in Los Angeles earlier this year, she opened up further about how the backlash affected her. ‘Honestly, I’m making jokes about what happened to me but it was devastating, really,’ she said. ‘I just hated the way the show ended. I love that show so much and I just hated that the last time people would see me is that way.’

When a fan asked her, ‘Do you think you’ll seek revenge for those who have wronged you?’ Met with cheers, DeGeneres responded: ‘I don’t know who wronged me. I don’t even know who these people are, so I can’t seek revenge, but I really don’t hold on to stuff. It’s just not who I am.’

In her Netflix special, Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval, DeGeneres further addressed being ‘kicked out of show business’.

‘The “be kind” girl wasn’t kind — that was the headline,’ DeGeneres said of the way the media portrayed her in the wake of the allegations against her. ‘Here’s the problem: I am a comedian who got a talk show, and I ended the show every day by saying, “Be kind to one another.” Had I ended my show by saying, “Go f**k yourselves,” people would’ve been pleasantly surprised to find out I’m kind.’

She also opened up about her experiences in therapy during and after the backlash.‘I was in therapy for a while trying to deal with all the hatred that was coming at me, and it was not a common situation for a therapist to deal with,’ DeGeneres recalled.

She continued: ‘At one point, my therapist said, ‘Ellen, where do you get this idea that everyone hates you? And I said, “Well, um, New York Times, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Us Weekly. I think Elmo may have said something recently on an episode of Sesame Street.’