Ellen DeGeneres has faced criticism online after donating $5,000 to a fundraiser for Matthew Wright, the former executive producer of her talk show who died suddenly at 52.

The 68-year-old media figure, who shared an emotional video of herself crying after learning of Wright’s death, was among the contributors to a GoFundMe campaign created to support his family.

The circumstances surrounding Wright’s death have not been disclosed. The fundraiser described it as an “unfathomable tragedy” that occurred in Los Angeles.

DeGeneres ranked among the campaign’s leading donors with her $5,000 contribution. However, because her fortune has been estimated at $500 million by Celebrity Net Worth, some social media users argued that the donation should have been larger.

The Daily Mail has contacted DeGeneres’s representatives for comment but has not received a response.

Podcaster and author Dana Parish highlighted the situation in a post on X, writing: “Ellen DeGeneres’s 52-y/o longtime exec producer, Matt Wright, tragically died on Oct 30, while working in LA. His fam is in NY & started a GFM to help with expenses. Ellen donated $5k.”

Criticism quickly appeared in the comments, with one person sarcastically writing: “Big spender. She was crying her eyes out so much why didn’t she just pay the entire 50k.”

Another commenter claimed Wright had been worried because he and his husband were both unemployed while supporting their children, adding, “She is heartless.” A separate user called DeGeneres “a cheapskate.”

Other users came to DeGeneres’s defense, questioning why the family needed crowdfunding when Wright had worked as an executive producer on one of the most successful talk shows of the past 25 years.

“Executive producer for Ellen DeGensres show needs financial help??? How can that be?” one person wrote.

“Does a longtime executive producer of one of the biggest shows ever need a GoFundMe?” another X user asked. However, one commenter pushed back against the criticism, writing: “I can’t stand Ellen but this post is stupid. We don’t know if they were still friends or even liked each other.”

The GoFundMe page explained the financial pressures facing Wright’s loved ones.

“His husband, father, sister and niece are in New York, desperate to be reunited for a proper goodbye. We’re asking for all of his friends, who Matt loved so fully, to help the family at this time,” the fundraiser stated.

“As many of you know, Matt & Justin were both laid off this summer. And the unexpected costs of getting Matt home, a funeral and a memorial are impossible for the family to bear.”

Meanwhile, DeGeneres posted a video sobbing as she paid tribute to her former colleague on Monday. 

DISCOVER MORE: Who is Monica Sementilli, and What Allegations Does She Face? – NewsFinale

DeGeneres said: ‘He was an amazing guy, he was funny, god he made me laugh, he would surprise me with things that he did all the time. 

‘He was smart, he was kind, he was part of our show. everyone loved him.’

Tearing up, she continued: ‘I loved him and it’s just shocking. We were working on a project together that we were supposed to start.

‘We’re gonna miss him, he is and always will be the glue to our entire family at the Ellen Show.

‘I’m so sorry because we lost a good guy. 

‘And he and tWitch [the late Stephen Boss, who died by suicide in 2022] were so close. And now he and tWitch are together, dancing and laughing.’

Wright worked on the talk show for 16 years. When the show ended in 2022 amid a storm of controversy over an alleged toxic workplace environment, he wrote, ‘How do I even begin to sum up 16 years of my life? 

‘I’ve made so many best friends, had so many amazing experiences, met so many heroes of mine and even fell in love thanks to this show.

‘I will forever be grateful to @theellenshow for taking a chance on me and changing my life! Here’s to an amazing run!’

Andy Lassner, a fellow EP on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, revealed he had seen Wright just ‘hours’ before he died. 

He wrote on Instagram, ‘These photos were taken Thursday, while we were taping our Halloween show. Matt came by to visit.

‘A few hours later, he was gone. We are all in shock.

‘We are all in shock. He was a brilliant producer and an even better human being. 

‘The way he looked after his mom, flying back and forth from Los Angeles to New York practically every weekend before she died, showed what an incredible son he was.

‘My heart breaks for his husband, Justin, his family, and all of us who loved him. I was so lucky to work beside Matt for so many years and to call him my friend. We should have had so much more time with him.’

British food businesses were among those affected by a major cyberattack targeting supermarket refrigeration systems across Europe, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has confirmed.

Suspected cyber-terrorists have targeted at least seven countries, in some cases forcing chiller temperatures as high as 55C (131F).

Dr Richard Horne, director of the NCSC, which operates within GCHQ, said “vulnerable technology” in the UK had been “exploited” during the attacks.

Security sources told the Daily Mail that only a small number of British companies had been affected and said no major supermarket was understood to have been hit.

A London fruit and vegetable wholesaler narrowly avoided a major loss after staff disconnected its refrigerators from the internet, cutting off the attackers’ access.

Dr Horne said: “We don’t know the full impact, but we can see there are a couple of instances where vulnerable technology has been exploited, and we will be working with those organisations to understand more.”

He said it was “too early for us to say” who was responsible and that authorities could not yet “give a definitive answer” about the source of the cyberattack.

Dozens of stores in Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, Luxembourg and Estonia have been targeted, just weeks after hackers raised the temperatures of cooling units at hundreds of French grocery stores.

The latest attacks involved refrigeration units made by Belgian company Sabcobel. The firm said their evaporators had been switched into defrost mode, sending temperatures in some units from -27C (-17F) to 50C (122F) and destroying tonnes of meat.

The technique resembles last month’s attack on French supermarkets, which resulted in millions of euros’ worth of food being discarded and even sparked several small fires.

Those incidents involved refrigerators supplied by Danfoss, a company that also works with British supermarket chains including Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

About 40 Delhaize and Colruyt supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected, as well as 15 Carrefour stores.

Tony Goodger, from the British group Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (Aims), said several of its 300 members had “unexpectedly become collateral” in the European attack, with refrigeration units heating up overnight.

One meat supply company reportedly saw its cold-storage units reach up to 100C (212F), while two others said their units had begun defrosting.

However, Aims said the units were empty at the time because of the way abattoirs are generally operated, meaning no food products were affected.

Langridge Organic, a London fruit and vegetable wholesaler, was also targeted but stopped the incident from escalating by unplugging its cold-storage units from the internet.

Alex Pearce, the company’s managing director, said hackers had attempted to set the six units to defrost at 150C for more than four hours. Quick-thinking employees intervened, and no produce was lost.

“It clearly must have been easy to get in [to the system] because the simple solution was to unplug ourselves from the internet,” he said.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: UCLA Spent $220K on Emergency Drone and Ammo Stockpile

He added the company used the same fridge control system, developed by American software firm Copeland, which was involved in the French supermarket incidents. 

Dr Horne told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It’s not just supermarkets, it’s through the whole food supply chain, and we’ve been working through the night alerting organisations where we can see they’ve got exposed technology that’s vulnerable in this way.

‘So there are handfuls of organisations in the UK we’ve alerted and we’re aware of a couple of impacts.’

An NCSC official told the Daily Mail: ‘We are aware of a small number of UK organisations that may be affected by this incident as a result of vulnerabilities on their systems, and the NCSC is supporting those that may be impacted.

‘We continue to liaise with our international partners and the affected sectors to understand and mitigate its impact.’

News of the incident came as Dr Horne warned in a speech today that Britain was facing a moment of ‘enormous consequence’ for cyber-security. 

The UK has got away with doing ‘tech on the cheap’ for decades, he said, as the NCSC’s annual report suggests Britain faced being bombarded by AI-powered attacks on critical national infrastructure in the next two years.

Hackers demanding ransom payments are ‘highly likely’ to use the technology to target the UK by 2028 and hostile states such as Russia and China will routinely use the technology to pursue their goals by then, the report found.

In a speech launching the report today, Dr Horne said: ‘It is clear that our nation is living through a moment that, in hindsight, we will see as one of enormous consequence.

‘A “sliding doors” moment. A moment of choice. In the coming months, we face a real prospect of an unprecedented rise in the number of cyber-incidents.

‘But we must be clear that is not because AI has invented new ways to attack us, but because vulnerabilities that have been tolerated for far too long can now be discovered and exploited at a scale that was once unimaginable.’

His intervention came just days after Defence Secretary Wes Streeting warned Britain must be ready for war within the next 1,000 days. 

At the same time, the Government launched a new resilience drive, urging Britons to stockpile enough food and water for three days. 

Dr Horne added: ‘For decades, we have collectively got away with doing tech on the cheap.

‘End-of-life systems kept running for just one more year, well-needed upgrades pushed back as a “cost efficiency”, and technology providers failing to invest in security by design and default.’

The NCSC annual report said its incident management team received 1,831 reports of cyber attacks this year, of which 337 required support and 80 were nationally significant.

It also warned that 8,500 organisations when their systems had been compromised by attackers, the report added.

Almost half of small firms in the UK (46 per cent) have been targeted by cyber criminals in the past year, with nearly one in five (18 per cent) going bankrupt following a cyber attack, according to research by Mastercard. 

The study added that more than three in five small to medium-sized companies – about 3.4million – in the UK did not use any cyber-security tools.  

Australia’s housing slowdown is now translating into serious financial stress for homeowners. Some vendors are unable to secure a sale, others face losses, and growing signs of distress are emerging at property auctions nationwide.

Property commentator Tom Panos said one auctioneer told him that six of the 10 vendors at weekend auctions had broken down in tears in their living rooms.

According to Panos, it is becoming increasingly common for distressed owners to have purchased new homes while being unable to sell their existing properties as prices continue to weaken.

“A lot of these people are in a situation where they’re beginning to think to themselves, this is becoming unmanageable,” he said.

“Property prices have dropped. Some of these people are going to be losing money on their assets as well.”

Panos warned that a fifth interest rate increase this year could push even more homeowners to breaking point. While some families face the prospect of selling at a loss, others are struggling to keep up with sharply higher mortgage repayments.

He said Australians were giving up holidays, abandoning private school plans and taking on second jobs in an effort to retain their homes.

The Reserve Bank’s fifth rate rise of the year has left homeowners facing an additional $584 a month in mortgage repayments, increasing the annual cost of a typical home loan by almost $7,000.

For an average $731,000 mortgage, every 0.25 percentage point increase has added about $114 to monthly repayments.

Panos said the economic consequences would extend far beyond individual homeowners.

Declining property transactions are also affecting mortgage brokers, removalists, tradespeople, conveyancers and state government stamp duty receipts, as well as many other businesses linked to the housing market.

“If we were to have one more rate rise, I would say the chances of a recession grow significantly,” he said.

“When there’s less transactions, a lot of people get impacted. Obviously, real estate agents get impacted, but there’s a whole ecosystem that feels the effects.”

“Most state governments have at least 20 per cent of their revenue coming from stamp duty.”

“You have this whole ecosystem that’s impacted, and that affects the Australian economy significantly.”

“What Australians want to hear is that’s the end of the rate rises, and that to me is the line in the sand that says that we begin a new cycle.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the rate increase had been “widely expected”, but that did not make it any easier for Australian families and businesses to absorb.

‘It will be difficult news for many Australians who are already paying a hefty price for circumstances outside of their control,’ he said.

Compare the Market economic director David Koch said the burden on homeowners was becoming increasingly difficult to bear.

‘The Reserve Bank warned us that this could happen if inflation didn’t show some sign of stablising or easing – despite the fact that consumer confidence is almost at a record lows, business confidence is at record lows and unemployment is increasing,’ he said following Tuesday’s decision.

‘It is really hard to see is that homeowners are doing all the heavy lifting by shouldering these rate hikes, but to sympathise with the RBA – this is really the only lever they’ve got.

‘That’s why I think governments have got to get on board and start helping us fight inflation. They can’t just continue being their own island, spending up big and fueling demand. And that’s governments at all levels: local, state and federal.’

Meanwhile, new analysis from The Australia Institute claims the big four banks are making record profits as higher interest rates squeeze mortgage holders.

The think tank estimates that banks now make about $266,000 in profit over the life of an average owner-occupier home loan of $731,000, up $40,000 since rates began rising earlier this year.

‘While borrowers are struggling to make repayments, going backwards or, worse, losing their homes… the big four banks are cashing in on their misery,’ chief economist Greg Jericho said.

‘The banks are doing nothing to ease the pain of customers. Rather than helping, they’re making it worse, scraping huge profits from people who are only trying to put a roof over their families’ heads.’ 

The analysis also found the major banks make an average profit of $12,200 in the first year of a new owner-occupier mortgage.

‘That’s not money to run a branch, operate an online banking system or even pay multi-million dollar salaries to executives, this is pure profit, on top of all that. It’s obscene,’ he said.

‘Right now, an average Australian family with an average loan from a big four bank is contributing $234 a week to their bank’s profit – more than a thousand dollars a month going straight to a company which consistently records multi-billion dollar profits while customers experience unprecedented pain.’

Mr Jericho said the RBA’s decision to lift interest rates again in November punishes people who are already being punished by their bank.

‘Ordinary Australians – particularly those under mortgage stress – are not causing inflation by spending too much. Inflation is being driven by the cost of fuel, caused by Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East, and corporate profits,’ he said.

‘This brutal decision by the RBA won’t fix inflation. But it will see many decent Australian families forced from their homes.’   

Judo Bank chief economic adviser Warren Hogan said under a worst-case scenario, six more interest rate rises may be necessary, taking the cash rate beyond six per cent. 

He told ABC’s The Business interest rates may be too low to effectively combat inflation and said he was forecasting two further increases on top of the widely expected rate rise on Tuesday. 

‘If inflation remains stubborn, who knows how high we’ll have to go,’ he said.

‘The worst case scenario for us would be having to get the cash rate up to where the RBA took it just before the (Global Financial Crisis) when we last had an inflation problem, and that was a cash rate of 7.25 per cent. 

‘We’d definitely have a recession, there’s no two ways about that.’

When pressed about his comments, Reserve Governor Michele Bullock declined to say how high rates could climb and said the RBA would continue tightening monetary policy for as long as necessary.

‘Well, we will need to raise interest rates to the extent that we need to, to get inflation down,’ she said.

‘I don’t know how high that is. I know we’ve done five hikes this year, and that has still got another 12 months to play through. As I’ve already said, that still has another 12 months to play through.’

Bullock said economists remained divided over the future direction of the economy.

‘So, will we need more? I don’t know. Warren Hogan is one voice. There are other voices saying, actually, we’re heading into recession territory and we’re going to have to start dropping rates when we’ve overdone it.

‘One thing all these people have in common is that they are all entirely certain. I am not, and I admit that.

‘We do our best with our forecasts. We have to do forecasts because we don’t want to be backward-looking. We have to be looking forward. But they’re uncertain, and things change.

‘Back in February, we weren’t expecting a conflict in the Middle East. So things happen.

‘I’m not going to respond directly to the question of how high interest rates can go. I’d only say that we will do what we need to do to get inflation down.’

The RBA acknowledged the economy is slowing but argued persistent inflation and mounting global risks, including the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices, warranted another increase.

‘The economy is slowing, housing prices have fallen significantly and the unemployment rate has risen,’ the RBA said in its statement.

‘Employment is expected to continue to grow, but the unemployment rate is projected to rise by more than expected in the August forecasts.

‘Inflation is now forecast to remain elevated through much of 2027 and is not expected to reach the top of the 2–3 per cent target range until late 2027, around three quarters later than previously forecast.’ 

Those concerns are already showing up in the labour market with the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing Australia’s unemployment rate has reached 4.7 per cent, its highest level in five years.

Tuesday’s rate rise decision was not unanimous, with Reserve Bank board members split 6 – 3 on whether to lift rates.

REIA’s latest Housing Affordability Report, covering the June quarter of 2026, found that average home-loan repayments absorbed 50.9 per cent of median family income, with monthly repayments up 12.4 per cent over the year.