Ellen DeGeneres has broken down in tears in a video tribute to her longtime producer Matthew Wright, who has died suddenly at the age of 52.
The former talk show host, 68, shared a selfie video on Monday 2 November, captioned with a broken-heart emoji. It included a montage of Wright’s sketches from The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
“Everyone loved him,” she said, describing the news as “shocking, it’s just shocking.”
Struggling for words, she said: “I don’t know what I’m saying.” She added: “I’m so sorry, ’cause we lost a good guy.”
DeGeneres also revealed that she and Wright had only just begun working on a new project together.
Wright died on Friday 30 October. His family described the loss as an “unfathomable tragedy” on a GoFundMe page, and the cause of death has not been released.
He worked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show for 16 years, until it ended in 2022.
At the time, he wrote: “How do I even begin to sum jup 16 years of my life?” He also thanked the show for “taking a chance on me and changing my life!”
The fundraiser says Wright and his husband, Justin, were both laid off this summer, and that the family cannot afford the costs of bringing him home, a funeral and a memorial.
The goal is $50,000, and about half had been raised by Monday.
Former colleague Andy Lassner has also paid tribute on Instagram. He said he saw Wright only hours before his death, when he visited him on the set of The Jennifer Hudson Show.
“We are all in shock,” Lassner wrote, calling Wright “a brilliant producer and an even better human being.”
