Drama Queens - Rosie O'Donnell - part 1

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

Rosie O'Donnell has never lived quietly, and this conversation is equally unfiltered. She reflects on the childhood loss that shaped her, the comedy that saved her, and the convictions that have defined her public life. She also opens up about leaving America for Ireland and her theory on why Trump is so obsessed with her!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi, everyone. It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome back to Work in Progress, friends. We have a guest that I am just delighted to host today. She is someone I have looked up to for such a long time, a woman who has never fit in a single box. We are joined today by none other than the iconic Rosie O'Donnell.

From her incredible career in stand-up, daytime, television, film, Broadway, activism. No, I didn't geek out on her about a league of their own, but you know I wanted to. She has built a career defined by being undefinable. She has been a courageous leader on the forefront of social goodness. And in recent years, her bravery and her candor, the things that she's lived with for decades in the public eye, have only sharpened. She's expanded her life beyond familiar borders, and I mean that geographically, politically, and creatively. And this summer, she is launching here in the U.S. in New York City, a new live one-woman show called Common Knowledge that is tapping into everything that she believes is true and more. It's commentary without filter. It's comedy, storytelling.

telling its richness about human life. And it's something that is uniquely Rosie O'Donnell. Today, I get to ask her all about her upbringing the history and events that shaped her and why she thinks comedy cuts through all the noise. Let's dive in with Rosie O'Donnell. Guys, we got Rosie O'Donnell on the pod. What are the Flintstones? Hello. Hi. I'm so excited that you're here.

Well, you know, I did some reading on you because my daughter said, oh my God, Sophia Bush. And I was like, is she related to any of the Bush thing? No. Mom, she's an actress from One Tree Hill, which I didn't watch. And now I feel horrible that I didn't watch it. You don't need to feel horrible about it. Well, I would have liked to have, you know, seen your work. But, you know, apparently everyone says you're really killing it on this podcast thing. Oh, thank you.

you. I just, I love it. You know, it's, um, I recently went and got to guest host your old show. I went to hang out with all the ladies on The View. How was that? It was so fun. But I said, I said, you know, The View and Oprah, like, your shows raised me. And when I think about being able to watch, not just women whose work I loved, you know, professionals who like do great comedy and great things, but watching you all sit down and have conversations about what matters. You know, you really, you're like one of the original users of a platform for good. So I have to thank you for that. That is very, very nice.

Thank you for saying that. I mean, I'll tell you the God's honest truth is that when I was little and my mother was sick, I thought if Barbara Streisand's mother was sick, she would go on the Tonight Show at Johnny Carson and ask everyone to send $10, and everyone will. and they'd get $1,000 and they'd get the mother, the medicine that they needed. So I knew there was power in celebrity. And to me, there was a woman who was Barbara Streisand, right? So if I wanted to be famous at all, it was because of that.

Yeah. I wanted to be in the Justice League. I thought when I achieved a level of success and financial something, we would form a women's Justice League and it would be like, you know, Gloria Steinem and Oprah and Diane Sawyer and Katie Currick and Maya Angelou and Adela Shabazz and, you know, and I would join because I would have my own charity and I would do right and we would solve the problems of children in America. You know, that's what I fantasized was going to happen from fame. I've never heard anybody else talk about. even something adjacent to what I thought as a kid.

That's so cool. Yeah. And I wonder too, you know, you say it and it's like we had all those women, those examples, and, you know, as much as I know the role can be reductionist in certain senses, we also grew up watching all these first ladies do good for kids and families. So you kind of figure, oh, when the women get to the upper echelon, that's what they do. they solve things for the women and the children. And that was my belief.

Like not just wish. That was my belief that this would all happen. And, you know, I have that belief that there's going to be all the women bonding together, all the powerful women bonding together and saying, you know, we've had enough of this. Yeah. And this Epstein situation and this, you know, child abuse and this, listen, here, America, we don't have the choice to pretend it's not happening. Right.

Right. What a surreal thing, too, when you consider the last couple of decades, you watch, you know, we have, we had the historic midterms. And then we began to shift the percentages of power in Congress. and you watched a version of the Justice League, right? The women launched Times Up and the Legal Defense Fund. And look at the backlash. I mean, you look at these fascists. You look at Pete Higgs' pastor on NPR yesterday,

saying they're going to take away women's right to vote. Look at his tattoo, for God's sake. I know. He branded himself with that. Yes. Okay, America? No more willful blindness. I know it.

No more. There's trouble at the gates, ladies and gentlemen. gentlemen. There's trouble at the gates. There are no more gates. We're talking about the border of Mexico. We're talking about the decency gates. They have a leak in them. We need to solve this crisis. And I don't get, really, Sophia, I don't get why so little has happened with so much proof. I know it. That's the part that's crazy to me. Because we know. And the willfulness, you know, when you think about, all the proof in the files. And I went into the Epstein reading room here in New York. We held the,

saw that. It was a fantastic experience and also absolutely just gut-wrenching. But you stand in this space and you go like, this is all evidence. And they don't want to believe it. And yet, when women say this happens to us, they say, we're lying. Oh, what a false accusation will do. Oh, these women, oh, they, oh, they ask for too much. You know, we've had one generation of essential equality, not even total equality, but essential. Like, I was born into at least an era where I was the first generation that didn't have to have a man co-sign on my rent or a mortgage, you know. How old are you, honey? I'm 43. So it would have taken me until I was six to be able to get a small business loan. So, like, this is why I say essential equality. But it's all rolling back.

and I wonder when you think about it because the central tenant for you change the world for women and children central tenant for me and you spoke about the aha moment when you were little and your mom was sick and I wonder

I ask everyone who comes on the show to think about themselves around eight or nine years old and I wonder if that if you got to encounter that little version of yourself would she see herself in you would you see yourself in her and how close was it to that age that you had your, ah, we have to change the world for other kids' moment?

The first moment that I remember being undone by was the news footage from the Vietnam War, the fall of sky on. And there was a plane, it was a locked shot, and there was a plane that was pushed like this big in the screen. And one of those walk upstairs was pushed on and it was jam-packed with people. And the reporter's talking and the people are climbing up. And an old woman gets kicked or pushed and she falls out of the screen. And I started crying.

And my father couldn't console me. And my feelings always were a little bit too much. And, yeah. And so highly sensitive people, I think, in some ways, right? I saw Alanis Moriss that's documentary on that, and I thought I completely relate to that, you know. Why do you care? It's not happening to you, was the common refrain that I always get. This is not happening to you.

I know it's not happening. But it's happening to someone. It has to happen to me in order for me to have feelings about it. I know people like that. I've worked with people like that. There was a story that related to a group that they didn't think was worthy. There would be little, if any, interest, you know, but somebody similar to them was the only way in.

Someone different than them was a no-entry zone. Yeah, it's an immediate closed door. And I don't think they know it, you know. But, you know, the point is I knew early on. that I had to try to do something to help. Right? My mother had died, but I wanted my father to adopt a Vietnamese baby. Because there was a plane full of babies that crashed.

This is right after my mother died. I'm like in a turmoil, you know. Of course. No one's talking about it. And, you know, I dreamed of doing Broadway with Barber Streis. Wow. That was my delusion that. got me kind of, you know, out of the stuff, you know.

What an incredible thing, though, that as a child who was experiencing grief, you immediately related to the grief of others and thought, if I can't solve my own, maybe my own can make space for someone else to have less grief. Maybe we can welcome someone in to this whole we're living with and do some good with it. and the flip side was, and maybe the big way to solve all of it, maybe the Justice League comes from following the thing that makes me the happiest, I could then maybe fill holes for everybody else.

That's pretty profound, Rosie. You know, it's the way my brain works, and it's kind of hard because I don't always understand in some ways why people don't see it. Like it's beyond my comprehension because of what I do feel in Aitly. I can't believe that people don't see it. Like I don't know what to do. And I feel with every ounce of my being that the only way to heal is to welcome them back. Because they were lied to by billionaire corporate executives.

Yes. It's a show about a man who was now president that was pure fiction and they sold it as fact and you believed it. And he's robbing the country. Yes. And he's raping and pillaging people metaphorically and physically. Literally. Yeah. Evidence to prove it.

Yes. And he's hiding it from us. Yes. And why doesn't everyone see this? And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible. Listen. And you're there for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage.

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Stream it all live on TSN Radio. Available on IHeart Radio. Do you think because it's... It's just so obvious. And the sort of shame that comes with admitting you've been duped is so big that people are doubling down because they can't bear the pain of what they assisted. Listen, I think we all have to come to that point in some way or another in our own lives. And we can all name that moment, right? Right now when Zai, you know, tricked.

to thinking something was different than it really was. And what was the damage done to it? You know, well, what's the damage done to our country? There are many metrics which we can look at. None of them are good. Yeah.

And it's now or never. I feel like, you know, Paul Revere and the boy who cried wolf all at the same time. I know. I'm like you people, are you not, You know, when I'm doing this one woman show in New York, and when I rehearse the lines just sitting by myself at night,

my kid in the other room, 13 years old, goes, that's a lie, Mom. I never said that. That is absolutely untrue. You're exaggerating again. I go, I'm just rehearsing. Let me do it. I don't like that you do this show.

I don't think you should do it. And I tried to explain, here's how Mommy makes a life as an artist. I take the true things that happen and I make something beautiful out of them. Yeah. And so what's happened to me in the last dozen years is you. It's been you and me for a dozen years. Yeah.

That's what I've been doing. And so this is about you and me. Wow. For a good team, kid. That's beautiful. I understand my other children said the same thing. You know, I told her that I said, your siblings felt the same thing.

Yes. And it's not like I don't care. I do care. And I don't think it's easy to have a famous mother, especially one who feels the need to tell everyone everything. Right. But there's something really interesting in that, too. You know, comedy cuts through noise and polarity.

And it manages to get everybody in the same room in a way that I don't think anything else does. I think you're right. I'm wondering like it also takes a certain courage. You know, I can't wait to come see the show, by the way. We'll get to the show. But I'm thinking about it. Like, you know, I'm a big emotional puddle all the time. And I have a, I have a sense of humor. And when I really get fired up about something, especially politics, people are like, why don't you do comedy? And I'm like, I think I would, I would die. But I can write, you know, very emotional observations and I'm coming near the to the end of writing my first book and I think about this thing that your kid is talking about like what are you doing telling the stories? But when you tell the

stories with humor, I don't know. It takes all the tension out of the room. Do you think comedy became part of your identity because in a big Irish Catholic family, you know, I know because I have them like it's a noisy household. You got to figure out how to be heard. Or did you find it as a language to sort of give yourself the mic in a world that didn't really want to listen to women, let alone queer women, let alone smart women? God forbid you're smart and politically opinionated, you know? Like how did you find it to get to this point now? You know, I had so many, you know, I was born in 1962.

So I remember Vietnam. Yeah. I remember the neighbor, Charlie Kosick, coming back with a hole in his helmet and showing us because my mother put a big twin sheet that she wrote Welcome Home Charlie and red paint on and she hung it from our windows of our bedroom. Wow. And we walked over and I'm young, you know, and young. you know, I'm young in this story. And we give Charlie Kosick the steak. Now, we didn't really have steak a lot because it was expensive.

But my mother made a special dinner, and she wasn't a particularly good cook, very delicious meat and potatoes, not a lot of seasoning. But she brought that over there. So I remember that. I remember the women's movement. I remember getting our bodies ourselves in seventh grade from a math teacher who was a And, you know, I would go to women's bookstores. I would read Gloria Steinem, Ms. Magazine.

I subscribed right away to Ms. Magazine. I thought Ms. was the greatest thing in the world. And, you know, when Trump attacked me, I thought, well, watch what happens when the National Organization of Women. Here's what he just did. And guess what happened? Nothing. Yeah. And I was like, no, are you serious?

Yeah. I'm serious? this joke of a human, you're going to let him do this to me, everybody else? Like I was like, and he went on shows with other entertainers, comedians. Yeah. So he went on those shows and talked to them and, you know, ha-ha, isn't that funny? Isn't that funny for 20 years? It's so crazy to me, Rosie.

He's so obsessed with you. Mm-hmm. Like he's obsessed with you. I have a theory. We both grew up in Long Island. He grew up in Queens. I grew up in Comac. I'm, you know, 20 years younger than him, right?

He's 80. I'm 64. He's 80, whatever he is. Yeah. So he grew up with girls like me. Tough, probably gay, Irish girls who didn't take shit from no stupid rich boy wannabe. Right. Asshole liar, megalomaniac, no social skills, no empathy, no compassion.

I would have told him to his face in third four. fifth grade. And I think when I did it to him, quote, unquote, on the view, he couldn't believe that I had the balls to attack him. Because he thinks he is heralded and held up and belongs on Mount Rushmore and, you know, solved 108 wars and is the number one person on Tick-Tac. And, you know, dumb has a bee at the end in it. This is the president of the United States of America. Doesn't understand that he's being tested for dementia when he brags about acing his cognitive tests. Isn't it crazy? It's absolutely unbelievable.

It's also wild to me how just childish he is. Like my favorite thing, the thing I say now, my Trump too, like, well, there we go, is constantly like, and another one for he is not smarter than a fifth grader. Like he couldn't beat a fifth grader on that game show. And he acts like a kid. He's like, he is like the cranky little rich kid in Will. Liliwanka who can't share his toys. Exactly.

Even with the Kennedy Center, like they made him take off. I was saying online that, you know, he put his like press on name up there, like press on nails. And they ripped it off and he's so angry that he put a tarp over the Kennedy Center. And like I retweet one of the articles. I talk about this man all day, every day. It's what I do. But here's a question.

Why is it still up? I know. Are you telling me no person could go and figure out how to take it down? On what authority does block the name? name of the JFK Performing Arts Center. We can't allow him to call Fifea and change the soccer score. You don't think he thinks he's all powerful now? Fuck you, Fifea, man. Fuck you. Really? You gave him that Peace Award because he didn't get the Nobel. You're like as corrupt as he is. I know. The piece award is so embarrassing. Then you change and let our guy go in, the best guy in a game where he's supposed to sit out.

And you think that's fair and that's not news in America, how shameful it is and that that man didn't stand up and say, I refuse. Yeah. I refuse to play today because I was given a red card. And those are the rules of the game that I love and I've given my life to. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. And even the fact that, you know, I did hear, I don't know if I believe it. I don't know what to believe anymore.

The news is insane. That's so true. But like, you know, one of the guys from FIFA got up and was like, listen, first of all, president can call whoever he wants. It's a completely independent board that reviews this. I have nothing to do with it. I had nothing to do with this yada yada. All the refs made the decision, you know, they said something like messy, did the same thing, didn't even get a foul, let alone a red card, whatever. I don't know. I don't care. What makes me crazy is even the suggestion that he would. A, if he's powerless and just wants to take credit, he's again, he's a petty little bitch boy,

which is what I called him on the internet and Breit Burke got very upset with me and I was like, that's the seventh nicest thing I've called him this week. Like, what are you talking about? Exactly. Are you kidding me with all of the things that you could say about this man?

I know it. That's like a gift. Exactly. I was like, he is. He can't share. You don't think this is petty? He's the president of the United States is putting a tarp over the Kennedy Center.

Like, what are we doing? But so it's like the thing for me with FIFIs, if he's just saying, oh, I did it and he knows he didn't, he's a child. And if he's saying, I did it and he tried to do it. He's a criminal. Like, the fact that we're tolerating.

You know, this is, this is the office of Jimmy Carter. Exactly. Peanut Farm. God, like. Peanut Farm, but go ahead and make a couple billion dollars for you and your corrupt children who stole from a cancer charity so you don't have the right to have a charity in New York anymore or anyone in your family. How about that, President of the United States of America?

They can't operate a charity, but they're launching the, the meme coins. I mean, it is so crazy to me. Yeah, but why isn't anyone doing anything? I know. Sophia, seriously. Why? And that's something I really appreciated about the thing Larry David just released, you know, the sort of spoof talking about, well, don't worry. Even if the guy, even if somebody like this did get into office, the Congress would do their job. And it's like, but they're not. But they're not. You know, they're not. And history is recording all of it. History is recording all of it. All of you people who stood by him, all of you think of fans who okayed all of his racist, bigoted, unfair, criminal, crooked behavior, you're all going to go down with him.

Yeah. And you deserve to. And now a word from our sponsors. No is throwing it back. 2010, the decade. To the days of huge hits and unforgettable items, a nonstop stream of the biggest and best. Drake, Rihanna, Beyonce, Katie Gaga, the weekend. And more.

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When you think about the way America has grown, has innovated, has boomed with scientific innovation, technological innovation, with, you know, entrepreneurship. When you look at the schism in the economy that began when they started changing all the tax laws for the ultra wealthy and this wealth gap that has widened in our country, the idea. idea that anybody can get ahead here now is a ruse. It's a fallacy. And you see like the ultra-rich getting so, so rich and people at the bottom remaining there. The cost of living, you know, has increased by 30 to 50 percent depending on where you live, but minimum wage has not gone up. And they're telling you it's because of your neighbor, not because of the ultra-wealthy that are literally hoarding the money from everyone else. And that's what's hard for me. And saying, no taxes. I know. And that's what's hard for me. In getting government subsidies. And it's a billionaire

Ponzi scheme. Yeah. And that's what they're doing. And Dr. King called that out. Yes. You know, we've been talking about this since the 60s. He was never a successful businessman. They never could quantify his wealth in order to put him on the Forbes list. And every year he called and complained to them. But they had to like announce, well, there's no way to quantify what he says his wealth is. Yeah, we can't prove it. And, you know, like I said on the view all those years ago, he's like, you know, a snake oil salesman on Little House on the Prairie. Yeah.

That's what he is. And it's very hard for people to realize that they fell for it. But it's not your fault. You were fed this lie for 10 years from the celebrity apprentice when there was video. of who he really is and saying the way things says about minorities. And you hid that too. Look what he does. Look what he says. Look who he is. This is the best the United States has to offer.

Does it ever, because look, you strike me as a person. Well, I know this about you as at least an observer who's always looked up to you and the way you use your platform. But I also know what it's like to be a woman who uses her platform and what comes with it. Have there ever been moments where you are afraid to say something, or do you think your commitment to telling it like you see it to the truth is bigger than the sum of all your parts? Totally bigger because I was afraid at the Million Ma March. They wear a metal vest, a gun vest, whatever, bulletproof vest. I was scared there.

Yeah. where Martin Luther King spoke. I was the host of that after Columbine. I couldn't believe children were being shot in schools in America. It was when I had to go on medication. I was having dreams at night that people were in my house with guns and shooting my children and I would wake up in a cold sweat and I was on my show still and trying to like pretend like everything was okay, but I was not okay. And then I got medicated. And, you know, I thank God, I was medicated when 9-11 happened. Thank God. And then when Katrina happened, you know, and world events have a strong undertow for me, one that I'm only learning how to resist

because, you know, everyone is just one person. And you may think, that this is the right way to do it, but other people have their own way of being in the world. And who am I to say, you have to do it my way, you know? You have to find your tribe, the people who want to do and inspire you to be better. Like for me, Mark Ruffalo, I was lucky enough to work with Mark Ruffalo on an HBO series that we did. And I love him very much. and I'm so proud of him and his advocacy and his using his platform and his voice. And I look up to him tremendously, you know.

And Cynthia Nixon, like there are people that I have met and know and love that are the same. Yeah. Whether or not you think that's good or bad, that's for you to decide. But to me, it's your responsibility if you've been given so much by this country. Yeah. Just end up and use your voice to say, hold on people because we are on a scary slope. And it's not like fascists are at the door. They're in the Supreme Court.

Yeah, they're everywhere. Okay? Yeah. Time to wake up. In case of emergency, break glass. Break the glass. Pull the alarm. It's now.

It's now. It's right now. You know? And artists have to do their best to keep creating, to keep being funny, to keep being brave. Yeah. Artists, you know, have something to say that people follow and... Yeah.

But you've been brave a long time. I mean, you... Thank you. Sorry. It's okay. Even when I think, you know, about the personal, the personal courage, not just using your voice to talk about what's going on in the world, you know, for other people, for community, but with yourself.

I mean, you spoke, I think the first time you spoke public. about being gay was 2002, right? It was in a set. Yes, it was Diane Sawyer. Yeah. It was after 9-11, is what I remember. Yeah. And everything changed after 9-11. I was very lucky that 9-11 happened, and then six months later, I was off. Now, they had asked me at the beginning of the season to resign, but I wouldn't. But they kept making it more and more money. And it was crazy money. Wow. And I already had crazy. And I knew I wanted to go to my kids' plays at school, and I knew I wanted to be a participatory mother in a way that my mother didn't get to be.

So I said no, you know. But that was right near where I was driving off the exit, you know, of celebrity dumb. I was like, okay, I'm going to take a right turn here. You know, I'm going to see how I can do. and you know because make no mistake it's a drug you know fame is a drug and I'm a little bit re-famous now it's weird that's what my kids are calling it mom you're re-famous and then what it's true because the times and the perception has changed in the country and I can feel it yeah there's a shift there's been a shift and people are waking up and seeing and now it's just

in the doing so what do we do are you telling me you that we don't have as many smart, brilliant people on the side of truth that are going to say, this is how you fix this problem, because this is a problem for America. I just want to pick Rosie's brain forever. So join us for Part 2. We'll see you back here, Sam. This is an IHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.