Rosie O'Donnell on Long-Lasting Feud with (Now President) Donald Trump: 'He Won't Let It Die'
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Bruce Glikas/WireImage; Mark Wilson/Getty Rosie O'Donnell (left) and President Donald Trump
Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump are going at it — still.
In an interview with The Daily Beast published on Monday, the I Know This Much Is True actress, 58, spoke about her long-running feud with Trump, 73, which began well before his presidency.
Their public back-and-forth was sparked as far back as December 2006, when O'Donnell called the businessman out while co-hosting The View, labeling him a "snake-oil salesman" who was morally hypocritical.
Firing back, Trump told PEOPLE at the time that she was "out of control."
"I said some things about him — not nearly as bad as I could have said ... but I just talked about him not being a self-made man, having money from his father, and saying he went bankrupt — and it made him go berserk," she told The Daily Beast this week. "He went on a tirade for a good decade that hasn’t ended today."
She added: "I think he can’t let go of a strong woman standing up to him. He won’t let it die."
O'Donnell, who has not been shy about harshly criticizing the Trump administration, said it "boggles" her mind that he continues to be the president despite what she called "blatant and obvious" indiscretions.
Rosie O'Donnell in May 2017
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Trump told PEOPLE in 2006 that O'Donnell would "rue the words she said."
"I’ll most likely sue her for making those false statements — and it’ll be fun. Rosie’s a loser, a real loser," he said at the time. "I look forward to taking lots of money from my nice, fat little Rosie."
Fueling the fire, Trump made several media appearances over the following weeks, attacking O'Donnell at seemingly every opportunity.
“Disgraceful, a horrible human being, a terrible person,” he told Larry King on CNN at the time, also telling the New York Post: “She’s an extremely unattractive person who doesn’t understand the truth. … She’s a bully and she sucker punches people.”
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In response to his rant, NEON wrote, "Understandable, he can't read. #Parasite #BestPicture #Bong2020"
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Their argument found its way onto Twitter, with the pair jousting back and forth even after Trump entered the Oval Office.
During a presidential debate in September 2016, he circled back to it yet again, saying then: "Somebody who has been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her." (She soon tweeted that he was an "orange anus.")
In October 2017, O'Donnell talked to W magazine about her "rage" and sadness after Trump was elected president in 2016. The Emmy winner said she felt "severe shock to my entire essence and my beliefs in the order in the world."
"I seriously worry whether I personally will be able to live through [his presidency] and whether the nation will be able to live through it and survive," O’Donnell said at the time. "It’s a terrifying concept, on the brink of nuclear war with a madman in charge."
For his part, the last time the president tweeted about O'Donnell by name was in 2017 when he replied to a months-old tweet of hers complaining about former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump had just surprisingly fired.
He wrote, "We finally agree on something Rosie."
