Ellen DeGeneres returned to the comedy stage Wednesday night for the first set of her “Ellen’s Last Stand…Up Tour,” taking significant time to address controversy around her talk show that began with an internal investigation of poor working conditions on the show as reported in Buzzfeed.

“Oh yeah, I got kicked out of show business,” DeGeneres sarcastically quipped onstage of the Largo at the Coronet Theater in West Hollywood, reports Rolling Stone, which had a reporter on site for the show. “There’s no mean people in show business. … I became this one-dimensional character who gave stuff away and danced up steps. Do you know how hard it is to dance up steps? Would a mean person dance up steps? Had I ended my show by saying, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ people would’ve been pleasantly surprised.”

DeGeneres’ Emmy-winning daytime talk show “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” came to an...