Rosie O’Donnell has recounted the agony of learning how Ellen DeGeneres really felt about their friendship.
The showbiz icon has shared numerous times how DeGeneres, 67, publicly distanced herself from O’Donnell during a 2004 interview on Larry King Live, telling the talk show host she didn’t know the star that well and they weren’t ‘really friends’.
The sting has remained to this day, and O’Donnell, 63, shed light on just how deep the wound has run during a chat on the podcast No Filter.
O’Donnell was watching DeGeneres’ interview in bed with her then-wife Kelli Carpenter when the comedienne dropped the bombshell.
‘That was like one of the most painful things that ever happened to me in show business in my life,’ O’Donnell recalled. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’
When asked why she said that, O’Donnell replied: ‘I don’t know, because I have photos of her holding my newborn babies. I knew her for 30 years.’
Rosie O’Donnell has recounted the agony of learning how Ellen DeGeneres really felt about their friendship
DeGeneres appeared on The Rosie O’Donnell Show in 1996, where O’Donnell introduced her as ‘my buddy’
The moment left such an impact on O’Donnell that she even had T-shirts made out of the phrase.
‘It was so upsetting to me that I had T-shirts made,’ she said. ‘”I don’t know Rosie, we’re not friends,” and I gave them out to my staff. It was very painful and I never sort of got over it.’
While O’Donnell had DeGeneres on as a guest on her own talk show – even introducing her as ‘my buddy’ – the Harriet The Spy actress wasn’t invited on to Ellen until the show’s 19th season.
She said DeGeneres had never reached out to explain her comments.
‘We’re not similar,’ she said. ‘We’re not emotionally similar. I was never asked to go on her show. When I was, it was long after they had been on for many years. And she had the same staff as my show, the same producers, the same everything. And now I don’t blame her for doing that, I didn’t create the genre of a Merv Griffin Mike Douglas talk show,’ she said.
‘But I did think that she was, all of a sudden, in the position I was in. Where she was starting a show, and wanting it to be successful, and get the money and the accolades that came with it. And instead of deciding to stand next to me and hold my hand, which is what I did to her, she did the opposite. I couldn’t believe it,’ she said.
When asked if she was aware about the allegations of a toxic workplace at Ellen, she replied: ‘I knew the way she treated me must be the way she treats others, and I felt very betrayed… And you hear things, you know, you hear things from different people.’
O’Donnell claims DeGeneres has asked her several times why she continues to bring the issue up.
‘I’m now 63 and she’s a few years older than me. I don’t wish her any ill will. But I never could kind of get past it. And a lot of times, you know, she has said or written me and said, “Why are you still talking about this?”‘ O’Donnell claimed, prompting her to reply, ‘It was profound for me. It was a profound moment.’
Rosie and Ellen shared an embrace at the beginning of their interview
O’Donnell said the icing left such an impact on her that she even had T-shirts made out of it
Had the tables been turned, O’Donnell says she would have offered an apology.
‘I would have apologised, I would have said “I’m really sorry I hurt you that much and I don’t know why I did that and it was a mistake and I hope you can forgive me.” That’s what I would have done,’ she said.
‘But I think in her mind, she thinks I keep rehashing it for pleasure. I don’t rehash it for pleasure. I rehash it because our careers have taken sort of parallel, interwoven paths.
‘We’re gay talk show hosts and we’re around the same age so people would always ask me about it, and I have a hard time not telling the truth.’
The drama all began when DeGeneres appeared on Larry King Live shortly after O’Donnell came out as lesbian.
DeGeneres was asked what her thoughts were about the news and she replied: ‘I don’t know. You know, maybe she didn’t — I don’t really know Rosie that well. I mean, I’ve spoken to her, but we’re not really friends. We don’t, like — so I don’t really know and I couldn’t say what her…’
O’Donnell was more or less persona non grata on The Ellen DeGeneres Show during its long tenure but was finally asked to appear as a guest in season 19.
O’Donnell also addressed allegations of a toxic workplace at Ellen, saying, ‘I knew the way she treated me must be the way she treats others’
Rosie with Ellen and her wife Portia de Rossi
‘We had a little bit of a weird thing, and after my show went off the air and hers was coming on the air,’ O’Donnell explained to host Andy Cohen.
‘Larry King was on with Ellen and he said “What ever happened to Rosie O’Donnell? Her show went down the tubes! She came out as a lesbian and disappeared!”‘
‘And Ellen said, and I’m quoting, “I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.”‘
At the time, O’Donnell was watching the interview at home with her ex-wife.
‘I was in bed with Kelli and I said “Did I just hear that? Or was that a hallucination, auditory voice in my —” she recollected. ‘And that’s what happened. And it hurt my feelings like a baby. And I never really got over it.’
Nearly more than a decade later, Rosie was finally asked to come on Ellen’s show as a guest, she revealed, but to make it ‘a little less awkward’ there was talk of bringing on someone with her.
Ultimately that idea didn’t fly but O’Donnell seemed not to harbor ill will towards DeGeneres.
Rosie and Ellen in 1992 in a photo shared by Melissa Ethridge
‘I wish her all good things in her life and that she should be well,’ she said.
Over the summer, DeGeneres even showed her support for O’Donnell after President Donald Trump threatened to revoke The Flintstones star’s U.S. citizenship.
Both women have left the United States following Trump’s re-election.
The Rosie O’Donnell Show, a once very popular daytime chat series, aired from 1996 to 2002. Ellen’s talk show seemingly replaced Rosie in 2003 and went on for 19 seasons until ending following a toxic workplace controversy.
In 2023, O’Donnell revealed that DeGeneres had reach out to apologize sometime after her WWHL appearance.
‘She wrote, “I’m really sorry, and I don’t remember that.” I guess she saw me talk about it on Andy Cohen’s show,’ she told The Hollywood Reporter.
‘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.’
Rosie went on to explain that she isn’t willing to let her back in the circle of trust despite the two a long history together.
She explained; ‘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.’
