NEW YORK CITY, New York –
Ellen DeGeneres has not shied from edgy pranks in the past. From fake failed proposals, to her and Justin Bieber scaring people in bathrooms, her practical jokes have become the gold standard of celebrity misbehavior.
Her latest stunt involved showing up on unsuspecting people’s doorsteps and, after they recovered from the excitement of the celebrity’s appearance, solemnly informing them that a loved one has been killed and eaten by Bob, an escaped gorilla.
The responses to this prank may be the best yet. Unfortunately, she has been prevented by the sulky victims from showing their reactions on her show. Here are some of the best, described by the lovable star.
“The first one was quite a hoot. It was a twenty five year old newlywed. When I told her her husband was dead, she literally collapsed. It took ten minutes to revive her, and then when I revealed that it was a hoax, she fainted again!”
DeGeneres says that normally she is more for the “light-hearted” types of pranks, but she thought that no one would really fall for the joke when she said they’d been eaten by a gorilla.
“The next could not have been scripted. I told this thirty-something male that his wife and baby daughter had been eaten by Bob, he burst into tears and ran to the kitchen. I chased after him with my film crew, just in time to catch him sticking a kitchen knife into his stomach. Wow, he almost bled to death, but he was such a sweetie that he had no idea how to murderously use a knife.”
A production assistant on the show, who was on-location as Ellen performed her pranks, says that they had so much fun filming, they nearly stretched the bit to fill an entire hour-long episode.
“One of my favorites was the old lady who thought she’d lost her entire extended family,” said Mary Clarke, production assistant. “Poor woman was in a retirement village, and when Ellen told her the news, she was so distraught that she actually gouged her eyes out. I’ve never seen anything like it. To add to the fun, when I told her the truth, she threw her eyeballs at me. Oh my God, what a day!”
DeGeneres says that she will be paying for all medical bills for the people who appeared in her prank, as well as giving them all paid vacations to anywhere in the world. “I just want to be the next Oprah,” said DeGeneres. “You get a hospital bill, and you get a hospital bill, and you get a hospital bill!”