Rosie O’Donnell Criticizes 90s Talk Show Host Over Netflix Doc

 Rosie O’Donnell has slammed Jay Leno over Netflix’s docuseries Fit For TV: The Reality Of The Biggest Loser.

The 63-year-old media personality – who recently showed off their weight loss from Mounjaro – pulled no punches as she went after the 75-year-old comedian decades after they were both talk show hosts during the 90s.

Rosie took to Instagram on Monday night to share two images taken from her television with the caption: ‘Jay Leno is a mean a**hole #biggestloserdocumentary.’

One of the photos was of Tracey Yukich from the docuseries who was a contestant on season 9 of The Biggest Loser.

Rosie seemed to be referring to part of Fit For TV: The Reality Of The Biggest Loser where Yukich was shown on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in 2009.

On the program Jay had read death threats Yukich had received while love on the show. 

Rosie made multiple appearances on The Tonight Show when Jay was hosting.

She also had her own daytime chat show titled The Rosie O’Donnell Show which aired over six seasons from June 1996 to June 2002.

The Tonight Show With Jay Leno aired from May 1992 to May 2009 before he returned from March 2010 to February 2014. 

Meanwhile, The Biggest Loser, which ran for 18 seasons on NBC and USA, saw obese or overweight people from across the US dropping upwards of 100 or even 200 pounds over a matter of months. 

The show ran from 2004 to 2016 airing on NBC, before it was cancelled. It was then rebooted on the USA Network in 2020, before being cancelled after just one season. In its heyday, the program went global, with versions appearing in countries around the world, earnings hundreds of millions of dollars. The branding was licensed for products including cookbooks, DVDs, and weight-loss camps.

When its NBC run was cancelled in 2016, it came after controversy, with critics arguing that it prioritized a number on the scale rather than contestants’ overall health and well-being.

Netflix’s new docuseries, titled Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, ‘takes a look behind-the-scenes, exploring its cultural relevance and complicated legacy’ – and as part of that, previous contestants spoke on camera about some of the dangerous habits they practiced in a bid to lose the most weight, and scoop the $250,000 prize.

Those practices included fasting for 10 days, and surviving on minimal calories while undergoing intense exercise regimes among others. 

Rosie moved to Ireland earlier this year with her 12-year-old child after the star of the president’s second term after being  a longtime target of Trump’s insults and jabs.

She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage.

O’Donnell, said in a March TikTok video that she would return to the US ‘when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America.’

Trump’s outburst followed O’Donnell’s July 7 HuffPost interview, in which she discussed her decades-long feud with him and her 2024 move to Ireland, made ahead of Trump’s reelection.

Trump’s disdain for O’Donnell dates back to 2006 when O’Donnell, a comedian and host on The View at the time, mocked Trump over his handling of a controversy concerning a winner of the Miss USA pageant, which Trump had owned.

‘I look at America and I feel overwhelmingly depressed,’ O’Donnell, 63, said, citing her need to protect her mental health and care for her 12-year-old child, who has autism.

‘I knew what [the Trump administration] was planning to do, because I read Project 2025. I know what he’s capable of. And I didn’t want to put myself through another four years of him being in charge.’

Watching Trump’s second term from abroad, O’Donnell added: ‘I think it’s as bad as everyone worried it would be. I believe fascism has taken a foothold in the United States.’

She also criticized a new bill she claims grants Trump his own ‘secret police,’ with a budget ‘greater than the money we give to Israel, which is already unbelievably high.’

‘I look at America, and it feels tragic,’ she said. ‘I feel sad. I feel overwhelmingly depressed. I don’t understand how we got here.’

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly brought up O’Donnell, including during the first Republican primary debate in August 2015.

When moderator Megyn Kelly questioned his use of terms like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ and ‘slobs’ to describe women, he replied, ‘Only Rosie O’Donnell.’

Her name eventually resurfaced during a debate with Hillary Clinton, when Trump said, ‘Rosie O’Donnell has been very vicious to me. I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree she deserves it.’

O’Donnell responded in a now-deleted post on X, calling him an ‘orange anus.’

After Trump’s first election, O’Donnell told W Magazine in October 2017 that she struggled to cope with his presidency, saying it took her a year to regain emotional balance.

‘I seriously worry whether I personally will be able to live through [his presidency] and whether the nation will be able to survive,’ she said. ‘It’s a terrifying concept, on the brink of nuclear war with a madman in charge.’

Trump’s latest jab at O’Donnell seemed to be in response to a TikTok video she posted this month mourning the 119 deaths in the July 4 floods in Texas and blaming Trump’s widespread cuts to environmental and science agencies involved in forecasting major natural disasters.

‘What a horror story in Texas,’ O’Donnell said in the video. ‘And you know, when the president guts all the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re gonna start to see on a daily basis.’

The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, have faced mounting questions over whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents ahead of the Texas flooding, which struck with astonishing speed in the pre-dawn hours of July 4 and killed at least 137, according to Reuters.