EXCLUSIVE: Ellen DeGeneres' stepsister slams her claim she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather and accuses the comedienne of only making the 'pathetic' allegation to 'sell a TV show'
- Ellen DeGeneres accused her stepfather of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager, revealed in an interview on David Letterman's new Netflix show
- Her stepsister Rori Rhodes, 70, tells DailyMailTV that the allegations are 'pathetic' and the comedienne 'can't prove' them
- Rhodes, who is nine years older than DeGeneres, said she would sometimes 'hang out' with DeGeneres, but 'never really connected with her'
- DeGeneres' stepfather and Rhodes' father Roy Grussendorf died in 1997 of a heart attack at age 77 - just six years after divorcing DeGeneres' mother Betty
- 'The man has been dead forever,' Rhodes says. 'She can't prove that, my dad's not alive to prove it, and it's just not necessary'
Ellen DeGeneres' stepsister has slammed the chat show star, saying she doesn't believe her shocking claim she was groped by her father as a child.
Ellen told David Letterman in his new Netflix series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, that when she was a teenager her stepfather, Roy Grussendorf, used her mother's breast cancer diagnosis as an excuse to grope Ellen's breasts on multiple occasions.
But in an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV, Grussendorf's biological daughter, Rori Rhodes, accuses Ellen of only making the 'pathetic' allegation to 'sell a TV show'.
The furious step-sibling branded the disturbing allegations 'pathetic', selfishly motivated, and claims Ellen 'can't prove' her claims.
Ellen DeGeneres accused her stepfather of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager, revealed in an interview for David Letterman's new Netflix show
DeGeneres' stepsister Rori Rhodes, 70, tells DailyMailTV that the allegations are 'pathetic' and the comedienne 'can't prove' them
Rhodes, who is nine years older than DeGeneres and is an interior designer in Dallas, Texas, said she would sometimes 'hang out' with DeGeneres, but 'never really connected with her'
DeGeneres' stepfather and Rhodes' father Roy Grussendorf died in 1997 of a heart attack at age 77 - just six years after divorcing DeGeneres' mother Betty
'I don't know if it's true. I don't know if Daddy did that. But it's like, really? It's so sad that she's doing that,' she said.
'It's pathetic. The man has been dead forever. Why do they all think they have to bring up something horrible from their childhood? She can't prove that, my dad's not alive to prove it, and it's just not necessary.
'I don't know what happened, I would probably bet a lot of money that Daddy didn't do that. He might have been concerned about [Ellen's mother] Betty's breasts, and her breasts were turning black which they do, and wanting to know about that.
'But the bottom line is I wouldn't trust anything Ellen would say, ever. It's always been about Ellen. She doesn't care about anybody else, it's all about what she needs to do.'
The talk show host made the claims in an interview on Letterman's new show, released last week on Netflix, saying her stepfather, then aged around 55, waited until her mother was out of town, then tried groping the 15-year-old.
'He told me when she was out of town that he'd felt a lump in her breast and needed to feel my breasts because he didn't want to upset her, but he needed to feel mine,' Ellen told Letterman. 'He convinced me that he needs to feel my breasts and then he tries to do it again another time, and then another time.'
Ellen, now 61, said the abuse happened when she was '15 or 16'. She is shown above around that age
This is the family home in Atlanta, Texas, where Ellen DeGeneres lived with stepfather Roy Grussendorf and where she claims he sexually assaulted her
DeGeneres says her mother Betty (pictured together in 2016) did not initially believe her when she told her about the abuse. Betty stayed with the 'very bad man' for 18 years before leaving him
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Ellen first described the alleged sexual assault in a magazine interview in 2005, when she claimed Grussendorf once tried to break her door down, forcing her to escape the house out of a window.
'He tries to break my door down, and I kicked the window out and ran 'cause I knew it was going to go more to something,' she said. 'And I didn't want to tell my mother because I was protecting her and I knew that would ruin her happiness.
'I'm angry at myself because, you know, I didn't, I was too weak to stand up to [him], I was 15 or 16. It's a really horrible, horrible story and the only reason I'm actually going to go into detail about it is because I want other girls to not ever let someone do that.'
Rhodes, a 70-year-old interior designer from Dallas, Texas, and one of Grussendorf's three children from a previous marriage, was livid about the allegations.
Speaking at her home she told DailyMailTV that Ellen was only repeating the claims for publicity.
'For her to bring up trash like this, like she is now, I don't understand that. To sell a book? To sell a TV show?' Rhodes said.
'It's a bunch of bullsh*t. I mean really? What is the purpose of doing all of this?,' she fumed. 'Are we talking about money here? Ellen has enough money, she doesn't have to do this.'
Rhodes said Ellen had never spoken about the story to her step-family before it was revealed in the media, and claimed the talk show star was only out for herself.
'She doesn't care. She's never reached out to us, she's never done anything,' she said. 'My brothers are so angry they don't even want to talk about it.
'I guess this horrible situation that happened in her childhood didn't affect the fact that she's a superstar,' she added, sardonically.
These are the divorce papers for Ellen's mother Betty and her husband Roy Grussendorf, exclusively obtained by DailyMaiTV. They were married in 1974 and remained together for 18 years until 1991 when DeGeneres moved her mother to California
Rhodes said that her father and Ellen clashed during the years they lived together in the small town of Atlanta, Texas, in the 1970s, over his homophobia and old-fashioned views of women's domestic roles.
'He didn't hate her, but he didn't respect her in any way because she was gone all night long, she didn't take care of the house, she was hell-bent on being a comedian,' Rhodes said.
Ellen, pictured as a teenager, said her stepfather told her he had to do a breast exam on her. Her mother suffered from the disease
'He did not respect Ellen, basically because she was gay. My daddy did not understand gays. I mean, my daddy still called blacks 'c**ns'. He just couldn't accept it.'
Rhodes said she respected women who overcame struggles including sexism and attacks, but railed against the Me Too movement, saying it is 'out of control'.
'I've had guys come up to me and try to do all kinds of things. And all I hear from women is whining. All you have to do is tell the guys ''you touch me, I'll kill you'',' she said.
'We're talking about women being powerful. Well, girlfriend, get your big girl panties on and go into the real world,' Rhodes added. 'I hate whiny women.'
She told DailyMailTV that her father married her mother at a young age, and divorced her twice. He later met Ellen's mother, Betty, in Louisiana in the early 1970s, and married her there in 1974.
Rhodes, who is nine years older than Ellen, said she would sometimes 'hang out' with Ellen, but 'never really connected with her', only maintaining her relationship with her stepsister for her father's sake.
'We were there for Daddy for that. Ellen was out for Ellen so we never really connected with her. I didn't like her or dislike her. Daddy was married to Betty so I wanted to be a part of Ellen's life,' she said.
Ellen moved with the couple down to Atlanta, Texas, that year, where she attended her last two years of high school. Rhodes said it was there that her father and Ellen came to loggerheads.
'That's when it all started,' Rhodes said. 'I remember Daddy saying ''she doesn't want to help us clean the house, she goes out all night.'' Daddy couldn't understand that she had this passion for being a comedian. But more importantly the fact that she's gay, he couldn't understand that.'
DeGeneres made the revelation during an interview with David Letterman on his Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction
Rhodes described her father as a charming car salesman with the looks of a young Elvis Presley, who could 'sell the Brooklyn Bridge'.
But she said he and Betty also often failed to see eye to eye, with the marriage finally collapsing in 1988 when Grussendorf refused to move to California so his wife could live with her daughter.
'When she became famous and got money, she told Betty ''we're going to move to California.'' That's when Daddy said no,' said Rhodes. 'He had a job and he wasn't going to do it.'
Grussendorf remarried in the 1990s, and died of a heart attack in 1997, aged 77.
After she moved out of their Texas home, Ellen told her mother of the alleged groping, but Betty refused to believe her daughter.
In a statement to NBC last week, Betty said she now regrets not listening.
'I know now that one of the hardest things to do is speak up after being sexually abused,' Betty said. 'I love my daughter, and I wish I had the capacity to listen to her when she told me what happened.
'I live with that regret, and I wouldn't want that for any other parent,' the statement concluded. 'If someone in your life has the courage to speak out, please believe them.'
