Jonathan Mendelsohn
During an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rosie O’Donnell detailed her diminished relationship with former talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. The Ellen DeGeneres Show ended in 2022 shortly after DeGeneres was accused of creating a “toxic” work environment on set. The show first started airing in 2003.
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O’Donnell and DeGeneres were close friends in the 90s, with The Rosie O’Donnell Show being one of the first places where the comedian teased coming out as a lesbian. On The Rosie O’Donnell Show, which aired from 1996 to 2002, the two women joked about DeGeneres revealing she was “Lebanese” in an upcoming episode of her sitcom, Ellen.
Rosie O’Donnell Discussed Faded Friendship With Ellen Degeneres
While telling The Hollywood Reporter about her once close friendship with Degeneres, O’Donnell said, “It was a good relationship. 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.'”
O’Donnell soon revealed that the friendship began to sour when Degeneres officially came out as gay in 1997 on the cover of Time Magazine. O’Donnell continued, “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. 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.”
O’Donnell added, “When it was a downward media time for me, (Ellen) didn’t do anything. She used the same staff from my show – Jim Paratore, Andy Lassner. So that was odd. It was very similar to my show. And then I asked to go on because of something I was promoting, and she said no.”
O’Donnell once revealed that during a 2004 episode of Larry King Live, Degeneres exclaimed “We’re not friends,” when the former The View co-host was brought up. However, it was reported that Degeneres has since apologized for that particular statement.
