The daytime talk show space is in mourning, following the death last week of longtime TV producer Matt Wright.
Hosts Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Hudson paid tribute to Wright on Monday, with the former struggling to express her grief.
“He was smart, he was kind, he was part of our show — I mean everyone loved him,” DeGeneres, teary-eyed, said in a video shared to Instagram on Monday. “I loved him. It’s just shocking.”
Wright died Friday in Los Angeles in an “unfathomable tragedy,” according to a GoFundMe created to benefit the producer’s survivors. A cause of death was not revealed. He was 52.
DeGeneres, whose daytime talk series aired from 2003 to 2022, said she and her former executive producer were collaborating on a new project before his death. She remembered Wright as the “glue to our entire family at the ‘Ellen’ show.” Wright served as a producer for nearly 1,000 episodes of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” from 2006 to 2022, according to IMDb. He also worked with the host for her game show “Ellen’s Game of Games.”
Wright and his husband, Justin, often appeared on “Ellen,” participating in skits and wearing costumes. DeGeneres expressed her condolences to Wright’s loved ones “’cause we lost a good guy.” As she paid tribute to Wright, she also remembered another late member of the “Ellen” family: dancer and DJ Stephen “Twitch” Boss who died in 2022.
Wright and Twitch, she said, “are together dancing and laughing.”
Jennifer Hudson remembered Wright on social media as one of the producers who helped get her talk series off the ground. She said on Facebook that while Wright was in Los Angeles he visited the series on Thursday for its Halloween episode.
“He made such a huge impact on so many people in this industry and beyond,” Hudson said, adding her condolences to his family.
The GoFundMe campaign seeks to raise funds to take Wright’s body back to New York, to cover funeral costs and to help provide for the producer’s family. The description for the campaign, which has surpassed its $50,000 goal as of Tuesday morning, said Wright and his husband were laid off during the summer.
Wright is survived by his husband, father, sister and niece.
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