Joel McHale also revealed that shows like Fashion Police!, The Soup and others got cancelled on E! after these shows got unionised, since
Joel McHale used his last episode of The Soup on E! to slam E!'s low-brow programming over the years in a funny segment.
Joel McHale just started a new show for and on Netflix, The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, the first episode of which is now available on Netflix since Sunday.
In an interview with Variety, Joel McHale revealed that "Way back when, Kris Kardashian would complain about our jokes, and Ted [Harbert, the boss of E!] would literally go, 'Hey man, Kris called, can you just lay off of her for a week?"
Once E! got a new boss when Ted Harbert left, things got even more strict, with E! interfering even more with censoring The Soup and what it didn't want the show to say and joke about.
"The [new] president said to my face, 'Don't make fun of the Kardashians. We don't want you to make fun of the Kardashians anymore,'" said Joel McHale. "So I was like, oh, this show is doomed because that's why the show worked, because we would make fun of ourselves."
About the cancellation of The Soup, Joel McHale said several shows on E! got cancelled when they unionised since they were no longer able to make money afterwards.
E! now had to pay repeat fees where it didn't previously.
"We went off the air because when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) made us union, along with Chelsea Lately and with Joan [Rivers, Fashion Police!], E! does not make money that way."
"They get their money off of repeating shows. So that’s why we went away. But yes, I did miss it."
