Rosie O'Donnell Says Relationship With Ellen DeGeneres Is 'Strange'
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Rosie O'Donnell isn't afraid to spill the truth about her rocky relationship with Ellen DeGeneres.
The two comedians, who rose to fame around roughly the same time, haven't had the smoothest of friendships over the years—and now O'Donnell is divulging some of the details in a candid new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"It was a good relationship," she said of the pair's friendship early on. "We were friends. We supported each other. Which is why when she came on my show, I said, 'Let me not have you standing there by yourself. Let’s get a joke in there.' And we sat down and came up with that, 'Oh my God, I love Casey Kasem. Maybe I’m Lebanese.' It became a big thing."
"Then the episode aired, Time ran its 'Yep, I'm Gay' cover and everybody was asking me, "What do you think about Ellen?'" the former co-host on The View recalled. "It became a strange, 'There can’t be two lesbians in this town,' kind of a thing. Then we each had success and went separate ways."
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"She texted me a few weeks ago checking in, seeing how I’m doing, and I asked her how she’s surviving not being on TV," O'Donnell continued. "It’s a big transition. But we’ve had our weirdness in our relationship. I don’t know if it’s jealousy, competition, or the fact that she said a mean thing about me once that really hurt my feelings."
The incident in question, she explained, had to do with a jab previously made by the Ellen Show star, who once told Larry King, that she and O'Donnell are "not friends."
"I was watching TV in bed with my wife going, 'Did she just say that?'" O'Donnell recounted in the new interview. "It would never occur to me to say 'I don't know her' about somebody whose babies I held when they were born. It wouldn't be in my lexicon of choices to ever say. When she was in a perplexing situation and people were saying things about her, I said, 'Let me stand next to you and say that I'm Lebanese, too.' When it was a downward media time for me, she didn't do anything."
Apparently, DeGeneres recently reached out to O'Donnell to apologize for the comment, writing in a text, "I'm really sorry and I don’t remember that."
"I guess she saw me talk about it on Andy Cohen's show," O'Donnell assumed. "I remembered it so well, I had T-shirts printed and I gave them to my staff that said 'I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.' I have a picture of her holding [my then-infant son] Parker. I know her mother. I could identify her brother without her in the room. I knew her for so many years. It just felt like I don’t trust this person to be in my world."
O'Donnell also claimed that DeGeneres denied her request to be a guest on her talk show, which would change the trajectory of their entire working friendship.
"After she said no that one time, whenever they would ask [me to appear] on the show, I would say no," O'Donnell asserted, though it's water under the bridge now as DeGeneres' show wrapped its final season in 2022.
Next: Rosie O'Donnell Sparks Controversy on TikTok After Defending Casey Anthony's Innocence
