Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Rosie O’Donnell: Love People Back to Life

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Rosie O’Donnell (The Rosie O’Donnell Show, A League of Their Own, Onward podcast) discusses the ripple effects of her mom passing when Rosie was a child, the emergence of the first LGBTQ movement, and the emotional highs and lows of becoming an activist for gay parents. She explains how she got into stand-up comedy as a teenager, the prevalence of alcoholism and abuse on her father's side of the family, and how losing mother made her strive to please the adults in her life and putting on a tough persona as a cry for love. Rosie opens up about the differences between her coming out process and what it’s like to come out now, her intense quest for spirituality, and navigating her youngest daughter’s autism diagnosis & what her daughter has taught her about inclusivity. She describes the odd circumstances of her heart attack and how symptoms differ between men and women, what it was like to address her ex-wife’s suicide as a public person, and how alcoholism varies from drug addiction. Mayim and Rosie break down adoption trauma, nature vs nurture in adoption, why women’s rights affect everything, and Rosie’s opinion on The View after all these years. Rosie O'Donnell's new podcast, Onward: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/onward-with-rosie-odonnell/id1677010022 BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The LGBTQ movement was very different. It was really emerging from shadows in our country. It was emerging and it was very much a separatist community at that time. We weren't yet, you know, through the AIDS crisis where lesbians and men really did come together out of necessity and we were taking care of the guys who were dying and we were getting their medicine and going to act up and laying down and get arrested on the streets.

You know, that, that, That horrible time for all gay people, when, you know, your whole world, all of your friends are dying, unified the gay community in a way that I think spawned this new generation of, but it's my children, even my 10-year-old who corrects me on these things. That's right. And it's so embarrassing and it's so shaming that I'm this lesbian, big star, icon gay something. She told me that her stuffed animals were non-binary. I'm like, here we go. Here we go. And I said, okay, well, what does that mean?

She goes, they don't feel like a boy and they don't feel like a girl. I said, well, that's fantastic. Do you know what's funny is that I'm a girl who people used to call a tomboy because I liked all the boy stuff when I was little. And you know what's weird? I still do really like the boy stuff. I like football. I like riding a motorcycle.

I like to do a lot of stuff that boys traditionally like to do. you know what else? Never was confused about thinking if I was a boy or a girl. Always knew I was a girl and loved being a girl. So you can be a girl and feel any way you want, or you can figure out what it is. And I'm like rambling and rambling. And she said, are you John?

It's my and Bialics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down. Hi, I'm I'm Bialik, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so that you don't break down.

I'm here without Jonathan today. It's a solo episode. Sorry to miss him, but I'm sure he'll be listening right along with you. And actually, he probably will be editing the episode. So he will be part of it no matter what. We've got a really exciting guest today. We have Rosie O'Donnell on today. And I learned so many things about Rosie O'Donnell.

she went by Roe her whole life. That's really funny. I assumed she was just Rosie. Nope. She's a Roseanne who went by Roe. And, you know, many of you may have kind of touch points of Rosie O'Donnell and where she fits into television and comedy history. You know, in the early 80s, she was on Star Search as a comedian and, you know, went on to have this incredible career.

She was in a league of their own, which many of you may have seen. but she's incredibly public as a mother, a mother of children who she has adopted and in some cases fostered, and she's an advocate for so many different kinds of rights. But she speaks very intimately with us about the challenges that she's had as a mother, the challenges that she's had dealing with all sorts of trauma

kind of around her, but she has this really incredible, incredible positivity about her. And I think that's all I'm going to say. It's really just a pleasure to welcome Rosie O'Donnell to the breakdown. Break it down. Hi. So nice to talk to you. Nice to talk to you. It's the Glasses No Makeup Party.

Well, you know, I looked at these like, you know, over 61-year-old Zits that I have, like a teenager. And I thought, you know, I really should have a little go-to kit to like cover them up for podcasts. I think you look perfect. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. This is really, really fun. I'm very excited to get to speak to you.

I've been a longtime fan of yours. I believe I watched you on Star Search. Like, that's how long I have been a fan of yours. Wow. You were young. Not as young as you'd think, but yes, I was young. But it's really, it's really fun to talk to you. You have a podcast as well.

Just started. Just started. You just started. Congratulations. It's called Onward. Yeah. And it's available wherever you listen to podcasts. What is it, what's the journey for you been like having a podcast?

How do you like it? Well, I really love what it does for me as far as being a mom in my home life, you know, because I have a 10-year-old daughter, the youngest of five. and at 50 years old, I adopted her. And, you know, I am now the 61-year-old mother of a fourth grader. So I'm the definitely oldest one of the parties there when we go. And, you know, she's on the spectrum. She's really brilliant.

She's so enchantingly, creatively magical to me that I feel like I want to spend all my time with her. And in many ways, it's needed. in a way that it wasn't with my other four, although my other four had their own, you know, little challenges to actually get a diagnosis of autism and then trying to figure out how you can take this journey that you're on together in the most, you know, adventurous and authentic way. And I feel so lucky that I get to have almost an only child

after having a try before and that it gets to be this experience, you know? And we'll get to all of those things, but I think also that's one of the really neat things about the podcast world. You literally can do that, just as you are, wherever you are. My mom actually just texted me today because our season three have called me catwrapped,

and my mom's like, what are you actually doing these days? I said, well, mom. I've got four jobs. You have a lot of job. No, but I, no, but honestly, Honestly, like, you know, podcasting, it is. It's that thing that, I don't want to say it's easy because there's parts of it that are really challenging. And I'm sure you've had, you know, moments as well.

And for us and what we do here, it's emotionally, you know, kind of like being rung out many episodes that we do. But it is really nice to be able to do it and then be able to, you know, go make dinner for my kids. Exactly. And be home at every simple hour when I'm, you know, podcasting close by. And I feel it's like a joy to me because my four kids who are now, you know, 20 to 27, the first four, the original Beatles, they really functioned as a unit because we had to because there was four in a row, right? And with this baby, even though she's not a baby anymore, she's 10. And my therapist says, can we stop this already? You're not mama rose.

can you stop calling her baby. Sing out, Louise. So anyway, I have found it really exciting. Now, the bad part about the podcast for me is that when I was first asked to do them, I wasn't really a consumer of them. I only listened to Pod Save America during the Trump administration,

and that was sort of it. Yes, that was as much. It served a specific purpose. Yes, and I really needed some information from some very smart connected guys, and they gave it to me every day, and I felt a little bit calmer during that time. And aside from that, you know, I had heard Joe Rogan's podcast,

but I wasn't a consumer by any means. I didn't know the art for my new radio from listening to Howard Stern for all those years. I obviously knew TV when I did it. But this was like I said, okay, I'll do it. And then I had to figure it out as I went and as I consumed more and learned more. And then I got so excited at the possibility. Oh, well, it's, I mean, also it feels like a really natural thing, if, you know, if you don't mind me saying, like, you are, you are incredibly well spoken, incredibly funny, very thoughtful and have a really, a super diverse kind of work and life experience to draw on. So for me, I feel like it's, it just seems really, really like a great fit. And I hope that it continues to be so for you. But I have a real fascination with you as a person.

And I wonder if you can kind of talk us a little bit through your childhood. Your dad was Irish, like from Ireland, correct? And your mom was Irish American, which is also Irish. But tell us a little bit about growing up. You're from Long Island. I'm from Long Island. And I was watching Conan recently on Jimmy Fallon or something, and he was saying that he did 23 in me,

and he came back 100% Irish. That's what I did do. I did my 23 of me to see if I could be, you know, a little bit Jewish because I always feel like that was my, you know, calling inside. What, you don't have enough suffering? Well, I like the suffering of the Jews a little better than the suffering of the Catholics. You get a lot of better food.

There was like a nicer houses, in my opinion, where I grew up. It was less alcohol, more depression is usually what we say. But more love, too. You know, I went into Lisa Shackner's house in fifth grade. And Lori Shackner, the girl, and I was like, this is where I want to end up in my life. I want to have leather couches and shag rugs. I want to have everyone together at dinner. I want kisses on both cheeks.

Hello and good night. I want the homish-buk-e-thing, you know. But I'm 100% Irish. And I grew up in a, you know, typical suburban Long Island family where all the houses were new. And they killed the potato fields in the 60s. and then they built these houses, and we all moved in. Every house had at least three children. There were like 20 houses on our block.

A lot of the women, a lot of the mothers, ended up getting breast cancer like my mother did and dying. My grandmother, they moved to Long Island in the early 50s, and she also had breast cancer very young. And back then they did a radical mastectomy. But, yeah, she survived. She survived? She did, yes.

Wow. Because my mom, what they told me, only years later, because we didn't know particularly that it was breast cancer. Like nobody talked about it. Right. We didn't talk about it. Yeah, it was completely a mystery. And I remember being in the eighth grade.

And I was with Jackie, my best friend and her father, they were divorced. And so some weekends we would go to her father's apartment. And there was a bike-a-thon for cancer. And he looked at me and he said, you know, Roseanne, if enough people do things like this, your mom and my dad won't have to die of cancer. And that's how I found out three years later that that's what she had died of. But my dad was, you know, traditional Irish Catholic and my mom was too. She was the head of the parish council. She was, you know, very involved in the church. She would get scolded by the priest, you know, don't rock the boat. Roseanne, I remember she came home

once from the church thing crying that he had told her not to rock the boat. And I remember telling her once when I was about to get my communion right when she was sick, I said, mom, what do you think maybe I'm going to be a nun? And she said, oh, promise me you're not, it doesn't pay very well. So she was doing jokes even then, you know. And, you know, it was a family that had a lot of alcoholism. My father's one of 10 kids and there were a lot of tragic deaths and early deaths and alcoholism. There was a lot of abuse in his family. You know, his father was run out of Ireland for interfering with the local children. And I never met that guy, actually, my father's father.

But that's what he grew up with and was surrounded by. And it's not as though, you know, men who were my father's age. He died a few years ago in his 80s. And it's not as though they were running to therapy. You know, it's not like anybody said in 73. Your wife has died. You got some issues. you need some help, Ed, you know, that wasn't really on the table.

So he was present. He had many lasting effects of the ramifications of his child abuse. And when I talk about it, you know, I always feel like I'm a timeshare owner of a condo with my four other siblings. And sometimes, you know, when one person is. famous and feels comfortable discussing things that they went through, it doesn't always sit well with the other members. They don't like it. No, not so much, you know.

So I always try to gingerly walk on shared territory. But, gosh, we could talk forever about that. Exactly. Anyway, okay, we'll set that aside for now. But so what number are you in the, oh, you're right in the middle? Yeah, first girl. Wow. So my oldest brother, Eddie, is named after my dad and I'm named after my mother.

So when the phone rang, it would be like, big Roseanne or little Rosanne's. Big Ed or small Ed, you know. So I remember thinking, I'm not going to do that to my children. I'm not going to name them after me. And so how old were you all when your mother passed? I was 10. It was 1973. And my oldest brother was 12.

And that's Eddie. And then Danny was 10, was 11. then I was 10. Maureen was nine, and Timmy was five. Wow. Yeah. And from my memory, and, you know, everybody has their own. And sometimes we argue for whose is closest to true. But she got sick around Thanksgiving in 1972, and then she died on St. Patrick's Day, which was March a few months later. And I remember thinking nothing bad could happen today because it's St. Patrick's. Patrick's Day. You know, because when you're little and your mother's in the hospital dying and there's chaos, I don't remember taking a shower every day. But I remember that day, I took a shower, and I looked

in the mirror and I said, it's got to be a lucky day because we're all Irish. And then that's the day that she died. So, I mean, I think you make a really, you know, a really succinct point to say that, you know, men of that generation and, you know, we can pile on the adjectives around it, you know, men of that generation, engineers of that generation, whatever it was, you know, this was something to move on from, I'm imagining. But, you know, for all of y'all, that is, those are little kids, you know, those are babies.

You were all really still babies. Who kind of raised you from then on? Especially with you as the oldest girl, because, you know, not to make it a gendered issue, but oftentimes in families, if there's an older sister. You know, she will automatically, especially in Irish families, in ethnic families, she'll be kind of the one to slide in and take care of things. You were the oldest girl, but still a child yourself. What was it like? You know, before she died, she taught each one of us

to cook one meal. Okay, so we're like learning this in the kitchen while she's still healthy enough to stand up, but we're thinking in our heads, why is she doing this? I'm not going to be cooking. Like, you don't go near the stove. You get in trouble if you're that years, you know, eight years old, 10 years old. And, And so she taught us each how to cook something, which, you know, felt very unfair to me because after she died, then we each had a night. So, you know, Maureen would make the spaghetti with the ragu and I would make the, you know, steak with the Seventh-C's Italian dressing as the marinade. Like, this is what she taught us each, you know. And it became such a daily, nightly memory

of what was missing, right? It was like, well, now we're on our own. What do we do we do. Sometimes somebody would be setting the plates and you'd set the extra plate for mommy. And nobody would say anything because you don't really talk about it. And, you know, it was tough. I got to say, it was very, very tough. And my mother's mother, Nana lived with us and always had, but she wasn't really a functional Nana. Like she didn't drive a car. She didn't go outside very much. She couldn't see who was who. She'd call me Danny, Maureen, Tim. Come here, Ed, who's that? You know?

But the fact that she was there and she was present made us at least have someone to come home to after school because, you know, my father had to continue to work, of course. And we were five kids trying to get ourselves through school and the shock of having, you know, a mom disappear. And then no one mentioned it, you know. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's

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Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my and Biala's breakdown to help support the show. Not to reduce you to the things that you achieved in high school, but given all that, you had a pretty interesting set of four things. You were Homecoming Queen, prom queen, senior class president, and also class class. There you go. Is that the recipe for success, Miami? Do you think?

I mean, if it's not, I don't know what it is. So by then, were you going by Rosie? No. Instead of Roseanne? No, everyone called me, everyone who knows me from my real life calls me Roe. But when I was doing stand-up at 16, this comedy club owner named Richard M. Dixon, he changed his name because he looked. His name was Dick Dixon?

Because he looked like Nixon. So he changed his name legally to Richard M. Dixon. And he owned a comedy club called the White Hacks. Dick Dixon's White House. And I performed there one night and he's like, Roe O'Donnell doesn't make any sense. From now on kid, you're Rosie. You're Rosie O'Donnell. And that's the only time that anyone ever called me that in my life. So I really do associate it very much with show business and never really with me, you know. Okay, so tell us who Roe was besides Homecoming Queen. Like, what were you like then? I was so interested in the attention.

attention of the teachers. I wanted the respect and the love of the teachers. I wanted adults to know me, to care about me, to love me. And I was very lucky because a year after my mother died, I went to junior high because I was in fifth grade when she died. I did sixth grade. And then I went over to the junior high school. And there was a brand new teacher named Pat Marravel in public school. And the third day of seventh grade he asked where my mother was that he wanted to call my mother because I didn't do the homework and I panicked and the other kids in the class a lot of them knew because they were from the school that I had been in and they were writing each other notes and then I saw one note that they passed that said Roseanne's mother is dead and I like was like that was the first time I

sort of heard it put that way so I ran out of the school and it was like a big thing and it was like a big thing. I hid in the woods for a couple of hours and then I tried to get into my house, but my grandmother was in the hospital at the time. So I went and broke in the neighbor's house and I went into their basement and hid there. And then I didn't go to school for two weeks. And, you know, there was a lot of trauma and a lot of kind of toughness. Like I kind of was like a little bit of a tough girl who wasn't going to let anyone love me yet it's all I wanted. you know all i wanted was like yearning to have and this teacher did it she read the case and said let me have that girl in my class as a helper eighth period and she was the first woman my am first

person to tell me she loved me she was the first person to give me a hug she was the first person who let me know that love makes a family not blood and she had two children and i'm the godparents of those children and they have children now and she has passed away also of breast cancer which is weird but she definitely mothered me from the time I was 13 years old all the way up until until she died so you know I was I was a good student because I wanted them to love me I was so so eager to be seen as good by them and I have to tell you these public school teachers were astounding because we had my grandmother who was not really able to care for herself. So we had to go home and feed her for lunch every day. And the teachers all knew we would come in later. In the morning, we would be late

because we were getting Nana ready or whatever. And so all the teachers kind of knew about this family. And when my grandmother died a year after I graduated high school, I came back from college and they all showed up at the wake. All the public school teachers for this little family that, you know, and I was one of those kids that benefited from all that love, from all those teachers, from all the neighbors, Jackie, who is still my best friend, 58 years now. I apparently knocked on her door when I was three and said to her mother, do you have anyone here who's three? Her mother said, yes, I do.

And that was that, you know. And so she was just here. We did family feud, Miami. Oh, wow. That was fun. That was fun. And, you know, so I still have that same group around me. I have my best friends.

Jackie and Jeannie are still my best friends. And, you know, I'm very close to my family. And I don't know. I like the homeish-booky thing, you know. I want to know a little bit more about kind of your personality. You have such a distinctive personality. And as a comic, you had such a specific and distinctive personality. Really, the arc of your career.

I mean, there's really, there's not anybody like you. And I'm wondering, as it. teenager, how was it that you got into comedy, especially so young? Well, you know, in my high school, there was a thing called Senior Follies, where the senior class makes fun of the teachers and everything there last year and sing parody songs. And so my brother Eddie was a senior when I was a freshman. And they said, I gave him some skits that I had taken from Saturday Night Live's album. And I changed the word. So, you know, we had a teacher who was very flat called Mrs. Barron. She was skinny as can be like a string bean. And so we took right from SNL weekend update, Mrs. Barron, more on that story as it develops. You know, so I would just take what I had heard on all these comedy records, especially Saturday Night Live. And I rewrote it for the teachers. And so then I was writing this senior follies for all the years that I was in high school. And this comedian,

named Richie Minervini, whose little brother was in my class, but he was about 10 years older. He was 28 or 29. He came over to me and said, you wrote that? I go, well, kind of. I took it from the records. And he said, why don't you try to be a comedian? I'm like, nope, I'm going to be on Broadway.

I'm going to be on Broadway or a backup singer for Bet Midler. I'm going to and he's like, well, why don't you just come and try it? And I went and tried it. And it was very funny because everybody from my high school was there. But the next night, Miami, it was a school night, and nobody was there and I died a horrible death.

So it was like the best thing that could have happened to me on a Thursday and the worst thing that could have happened to me on Friday. But, and then I started doing it. I was 16 years old and I just was up there and he let me, Richie, let me go on whenever I wanted to. And then I was really lucky because you know Shirley Hemphill from that show, what's happening? Yes, of course. Cheryl. She, exactly.

She came to be the headline. and it was a big deal in Comac, right? And she saw me at the open mic night night early and was sitting in the club having dinner. And she goes over to Richie and says, who's that little one? And Richie goes, oh, she's in high school. She's just starting.

She's working for me this weekend. And Shirley Hempel got me paid $50 for each show. I made $250 in the weekend. I was 16. That felt like being a millionaire, you know. Right. And so it began, my career of working and making money because of Shirley Hemphill.

That is incredible. So Star Search for people who don't know was like the greatest show on television. It was. And it was an unbelievable, you know, I think now people are so used to like American Idol and America's Got Talent, all these things. But back then it was, I mean, for me as a kid, it was my window really into the country. Because you saw people that you'd never get to see doing, you know, having talent that just you would only dream of. And, you know, the comedians, I mean, some incredible and very famous people came from Star Search, you being one of them.

But you moved to Los Angeles with the prize money that you won. Yes. Correct? From Star Search. I won like $26,000 or something because you got to, you got to. got like 1,800 every time you won, and then you got money for the one you lost. And then, so by the time I was done with my run there, I had $26,000. And I moved to L.A. I got a rented, I rented a furnished studio in Sherman Oaks on Sherman Way next to the 7-Eleven. And I walked to

the Mazda dealership with the rest of the money in cash and said, what car could I get for this much. I'm sure that was like a feeding frenzy, you know, and I ended up getting a car with no air conditioning in Los Angeles and with a stick shift that I didn't know how to drive. So, there you go. That's amazing. That's sad, isn't it? No, I think it's awesome. I mean, I'm a stick shift driver, so I love it. So I want to, before we kind of, you know, go on to where your career went, I do want to ask, you know, did you know you were gay? Yes. early on. Yes.

I knew I was, you know, it coincides right with my mother's death because I was 10. I didn't have my period yet. I wasn't sexually anything. I was the little girl still.

I was 10 years old. And, you know, but I do remember I met Lori Shackner that, that year. She came to our school from her. And she had a sister who was three years older, who I just, I went into her house to say hello to meet them when they,

and Lisa Shackner kissed me on both. cheeks and she looked like Barbara Streisand from the main event and I was like oh my god I'm in love like I I knew even like in fifth grade when everybody was you know matching up to be boyfriend and girlfriend and I really always love Bobby Shearin but he was dating Lori Shackner so I dated this boy you know fifth grade dated what did you do you know traded baseball cards but Robert DeShullo but I knew, I think, from the time I was 10, that I was gay. You know, I was very good at sports. I was really athletic.

I was really outspoken when my two older brothers were very shy. And, you know, I would always, I would have to get in fights for them. You know, they weren't kind of tough guys. They were, you know, wonderful boys who were not very athletic. And here I was, the sister who would be able to. play every sport and, you know, yell and scream and run and dive and catch the ball. And, you know, it was a lot for them, you know. The coaches used to say, can we trade in other two kids for the boys, for the girl, you know, and what you, you don't want to hear when you're 12

and 13, right? Right. Well, and also, it's, it's funny, the things that you mentioned, you know, I'm 47, so I'm, I'm younger than you. I'm 61, yes. Just, right. Like, I'm, just, right. Like, Just in that, I feel like I was part of more of your generation of understanding sexuality and gender than I often feel like I'm part of the culture right now. So the things that you named in our generation were often indicators of, I have a different sexual identity. Whereas now people might say like, well, there are girls who are terrible at sports and they can be just as much of a lesbian. But in the world that you grew up in, and honestly, you know, the way that I was raised, I think feels a lot more like the way you were raised. Right. There was this notion of sexuality and gender identity, which often went together. It's not always.

But I'm curious if at the time, you know, there was this notion of like, there's a name for this, there's an identity. Because, you know, the LGBTQ movement was very different. It was really emerging from shadows. It was emerging and it was very much a separatist community at that time. We weren't yet, you know, through the AIDS crisis where lesbians and men really did come together out of necessity and we were taking care of the guys who were dying and we were getting their medicine and going to act up and laying down and get arrested on the streets, you know, that that horrible time for all gay people when, you know, your whole world, all of your friends are dying, unified the gay community in a way that I think spawned this new generation of, but it's my children, even my 10-year-old

who corrects me on these things. That's right. And it's so embarrassing and it's so shaming that I'm this lesbian, big star, icon, gay something. And my little 10-year-old is going, you know, mom, there are some kids in my class who don't really know their gender. And I said, well, how could they not know their gender, honey? They go to the bathroom. They're a boy or a girl. Mommy, that is not your gender. That's your sex.

Your gender is who you think you are. And I was like, okay, all right. Well, what are we doing? You know, and then she told me, she told me a long time ago at Christmas, she told me that her stuffed animals were non-binary. I'm like, here we go. Here we go. And I said, okay, well, what does that mean?

She goes, they don't feel like a boy and they don't feel like a girl. I said, well, that's fantastic. Do you know what's funny is that I'm a girl who people used to call a tomb boy because I liked all the boy stuff when I was little. And you know what's weird? I still do really like the boy stuff. I like football. I like riding a motorcycle. I like to do a lot of stuff that boys traditionally like to do.

But you know what else? Never was confused about thinking if I was a boy or a girl. Always knew I was a girl and loved being a girl. So you can be a girl and feel any way you want or you can figure out what it is. And I'm like rambling and rambling. And she said, are you done? Are you done? I said, yes, I'm done, you know.

I don't know what to do. I was on the set of the L word and this gorgeous African-American, 20-something, long braids, woman walks by. Oh, my God, Rosie, you have children. Yes, I do. I have five. Oh, my God. I can't wait till I'm a dad. I said, oh, yes, because parenting is fun.

You know, I didn't know what to say. I'm 61, you know? And I always feel like when people write me and say, you know, my father doesn't accept this. Okay, how long did it take you to figure it out? Right. Give you a father a couple of months, you know what I mean? So, sorry, that's a very appropriate distinction.

You formally came out, which you shouldn't, you know, kind of have to do. And then also you were already so much in the public eye. Yeah, it was a strange time, you know. Nobody would ask you in an interview. It wasn't like it is today. Like, when I tell people, there was one writer, Patrick Pichenko, who just wrote Pichka, whatever, but with a pay. He just wrote a book for Chita Rivera, a memoir. He wrote her memoir with her, and it's beautiful.

And he was a very young writer and he was doing an issue for Cosmo with me on the cover or something weird. I don't even know. It was very early on in my career. And he said, are you dating anyone? And I said, not at the moment. And he said, who could apply?

And I said, all who want to could apply. And he said, well, would you prevent accepting applications from women? I said, no, I would not. Well, my publicist at the time, who was the legendary Lois Smith, who started PMK with Pat Kingsley, who was Marilyn Monroe's publicist.

She called Helen Gurley Brown and said, take that out. And they did. And it never was heard again. No one ever asked me in an interview, are you gay? I would sit next to Kelly at the awards. Get up, hand her my bag, and go, you know.

It wasn't like a secret. But at the time, it was never mentioned by anyone. one. Your decision to sort of be out and to live as an out person, it was also kind of part of the decision to sort of form this family, correct? Well, when you first come out, no matter who you are, is when you have a child. Because you go to the doctor and you were the parents, you and your partner, or, you know, I did it with, with, I adopted two children. Then I met Kelly. And so, you know, from the time that Parker was three, he knew her. And he was, that was our family. But the decision to actually come out publicly was because we had had a foster child for two years. And then we're told

that we couldn't adopt her because there was a law in Florida that prevented gay people from adopting even the foster children they raised. And there was a lawsuit by two gay men, Loft and Crout. And they were AIDS nurses who took, the orphaned babies and raised them and they zero converted a few of them and they were not allowed to adopt the children that they raised. So I joined their lawsuit with the ACLU and came out through that lawsuit. Now, it was three months after 9-11, so nobody gave a shit, which they shouldn't anyway because, you know, I mean, the case was worthy, but at the time, the world was upside down, Sure. But, you know, kind of 9-11 aside. I mean, I do want to draw significant attention to the level of not just bravery, but absolute commitment and the ability to kind of harness the nonsensical, absurd, inane, horrendousness of that time.

and how you made the decision to say, I'm going to do this. I'm going to be public about it. And I'm going to be essentially the public face of really an entire consciousness shift. And I think especially for people who either may not remember or did not know or were, you know, possibly too young to know, this notion is exactly the kind of. of issue that really was at the forefront of what it means to be a gay person. Yes. The right to have autonomy, like to even, that you even had to fight to say, I can be a parent.

I mean, that was a... You had to lie. I had to lie to become a parent. I had to say on my adoption certificate thing that I was not now, nor had I ever been a lesbian. And gay people who adopted at the time when I did, my oldest son is 27. That was just standard practice. And there were gay social workers who you would know someone who knew someone and you'd call them and they'd get in to be your person. And we'd help each other create these families. And, you know, we'd get our fingerprints.

We'd do everything legally. But as for, you know, who I wanted to be in bed with, I didn't really, you know, wasn't going to. let that prevent me from being a parent of children in need. The process by which you became a parent and also kind of simultaneously became an activist, what was that like in terms of sort of the emotional, you know, the emotional ups and downs? Well, you know, I've always kind of been a loudmouthed speaker to what I perceived to be injustice, you know. And that was learned in my kitchen table. I think, you know, my mother was very much into helping the poor and St. Vincent de Paul and, you know, what you do in order to be a spiritual person, how you help your neighbor. And, you know, I came by it honestly.

So when things would upset me, I would want to talk about them or remedy them or try to somehow use whatever power my fame harnessed. and, you know, what you perceive that to be before you get there. And then what it actually is versus what other people perceive it to be is a wide, wide abyss that it's hard to traverse. You know, you'd just go, that's too big a jump, maybe. But I knew when we could not adopt the foster child that we raised, and when I heard the story of the Lofton-Crotto family, I knew what God was saying to me, you're up, kid.

you know, I felt like I'd been on the bench and I'd been supportive of, you know, my gay brothers and sisters. And, you know, and now here was a time where God was saying there's all these kids that need families and you're doing it. And you got to bring attention to this. And I said, okay. Like, I never could think of doing it just for me. Not that anyone else's way is a wrong way. Just I knew for me it wasn't the hardest thing I ever got through in my life. being gay. There were much harder things. My mother dying, the stuff with my father, the chaos in our

family, the generational trauma being passed down. You know, there were so many other things that I, you know, I felt needed an adult voice. Like if you're a kid who's being abused, chances are the adults who's abusing you aren't going to take you to report it. But the kids that were once those, the adults that were once those children will be the one sticking out for you, you know? You mentioned God and I hadn't asked about, you know, kind of the religious climate of your family. I mean, obviously you mentioned, you know, being Irish Catholic.

Did you have a God, kind of a God of your understanding for all of your young life? Was that a challenge when your mom died? Like, was there any specific? I mean, not that you had to have God speaking to you all the time, but since you mentioned it, I'm curious. what your kind of God consciousness was? I think at the time I was very black and white Irish Catholic, you know, Jesus on the cross for your sins.

You better shut up. You never did anything as good as that. And, you know, you better go tell you sins to the guys in the robes. And, you know, I think that I was angry at God. I know that my father was we went to church one week after my mother died. And, you know, how they say, for those who have gone to their rest in the hopes of rising again, are dearly departing. Roseanne O'Donnell and my siblings started all crying and my father like bustled us out of the church

and it was a big to do like and then we never went back to church again but I think my quest for spirituality has always been pretty intense like I went through reading every book on every kind of religion I studied the cabala with friends of mine for about five years and really kind of loved it I studied with another rabbi friend of mine, just the Old Testament, so I could just have more knowledge than I did ever, you know. It's a pretty good book. Yeah, it's a good book. It's got some nice stories in there.

Things I didn't know. But yeah, I really, I really think that organized religion is probably going to end us in some way, but the traditions of spiritual truth and passing that down to your children. is important to me. You know, a lot of your persona, you know, as a comedian and as a host, you have always been, as you said, outspoken and, you know, you have a very distinctive voice. Did you ever feel like that was linked to your gayness? Meaning, did you feel you got either more allowance or more criticism or how did that figure?

Or was it just like, this is me being me and it doesn't really matter and who cares? Although when I did Star Search in 84, Sam Riddle, who has since passed away, the producer, was an old kind of show busy guy and he had worked with all the great Sammy Davis. He said to me, oh, you're way too tough. And I knew that that meant too gay. And you're never going to make it. But I think part of the thing was, you know, the gay part was secondary. And, you know, like it was so inside of me that I didn't question it really. I just kind of lived it.

Like I knew that I didn't want to wear a dress as a kid, so I wouldn't, you know. But I didn't kind of have to fight for it because we didn't have a mother. There was any clothes that you could get a kid that was clean to wear. And, you know, nobody was really taking care of us like a mother takes care of little girls, you know. Now, listen, my sister is 10 months younger than me, and she is not gay at all. And she had the same exact genes and experiences. grew up in the bed next to me in that house. So, you know, there were, there's a lot of reasons that to think and to know for me that it's genetic, that you don't, you know, nobody I don't think

wakes up and says, oh, let's be gay. It sounds like it's fun, you know, although kids today are much different. My 20-year-old at school, I'm like, is that girl gay? She goes, mom, nobody even says that anymore. No, they don't even, and also, my children point out that I shouldn't even be thinking it. They can tell that I'm thinking things. Yes, exactly. wondering and that I'm a bad person for even thinking about it in my head. Right. My kid says to me, you're judging. You're judging right now. I'm like, I'm just curious. I don't follow the whole thing. It's a little confusing for me. You know, Vivi's like, you're going to be over the moon because, you know, Dakota now after she told me that her stuffed animals were non-binary, she told me at Legoland two weeks ago that she is non-binary. And then she made a non-binary flag on a button and wore the button to school.

I was like, okay. And then I said she came home and say how to go with the button. That was great. Did people know what it was? Yeah, a few people. It's okay, Mom. There's a couple non-binarys. Don't worry.

I'm like, I'm not worried, honey. I'm fine with this. I'm totally fine. I'm a lesbian icon. I totally can deal with this, honey. No problem. Okay. That's amazing.

I wonder if you could speak a little bit about, you know, there's a lot of ways, obviously, to become a parent or I hope it's okay to call you a mother. Yes, it is. I'm just old-fashioned like that. I know, exactly. I'm all for mother. Okay. So, you know, obviously we never know what we're going to get, whether we birth our kids, whether they're made of our DNA and a person that we know. Like, there's a million ways and even more now than there used to be. I guess what have you sort of learned about nature and nurture? You've had so many different kinds of experiences and some you've had to go through publicly, which I remember when I would see those stories.

I always felt like, just let Rosie have her life and it's not anybody's business. But I'm curious, you know, I don't want to get into sort of like the drama of it, you know, for that sake. But in terms of nature and nurture, I'm sort of curious how you feel about it. Well, I will say this. There's like a lore about adoption, you know, and there are, you know, oh, the heroic parents who take in these children in need and not enough attention is paid to the adoptees in that situation or really to the birth mom. They often get vilified. And, you know, I had, a naive view of adoption, although I was as learned as I could be, because I read every book that there was to read and knew a lot about adoption trauma. But there was no doubt in my mind that I was

going to be a mother from the time I was a little girl. So I never went through what some of my friends went through, especially the gay friends of not being certain. Oh, no, I was certain from the time I was 10. And, you know, when I knew, you know, that I was gay, 100%, which pretty much was, you know, I dated one boy when I was in my 20s, I think, but short-lived, very short-lived. And a nice, wonderful man, truthfully. But I think that nature or nurture is a real question. And when you adopt, you try to find a situation where everyone kind of wins, where a family in crisis for a variety of reasons, all of the. valid, decide that they can't parent this child and want to find a home for the child. And so you try

to make a triad between you, the birth family, and the baby. You know you've signed a triple contract for life that you three are going to be kind of connected in some way, even if it's a closed adoption. All of my adoptions were closed except Dakota because it was 10 years, 20 years later and the adoption models that is used now, mostly is open. And so I had one... Can you explain what closed is for people who don't know? Yeah, a closed adoption back in the olden days, which is hard to get now, but you can get them,

is when the lawyer that you had representing you looked for a family that also wanted no contact with the baby, that until they were 18. And you can have a provision that says at 18, everyone's free to look, which is what we did. You know, we tried to find somebody who, wanted a similar thing to what I wanted. And what I wanted was to make sure that the parents' privacy, my privacy, and my child's privacy were protected. And, but when you adopt from all different

places in the country or the world, it's like you're waiting at the garden for the plant to come up. And you don't know what kind of plant it is. It could be a plant that you've seen in the neighborhood your whole life. And you pretty much know how to water and feed and raise that plant. But it could be a plant from a place that you don't even know what what the rules are to take care of it, that you don't even, that it's such a foreign kind of not natural. That's why when people say, well, it's similar to adoption. I'm like to giving birth because you don't know what you're going to get when you're giving birth either. In a way, it's true. But in another way, you know that you're going to have something similar to you and your husband. You know, you know roughly what the

soil is like. Exactly. You know the rough pH. Yes. You got a little, window of a piece. Right. You're going to meet somebody who's a little bit like this little person in your world. And sometimes, you know, that doesn't happen. And, you know, I've had one, my one daughter, that one that you were referring to is, you know, has a very complicated story. But it's hers to tell. But the end of the story is she ended up at 17 going back to where she was born. And no longer talks to the birth mother there. That was a little bit of her fantasy of what was going to become.

And so that didn't necessarily work for her. But I find it unnerving and shocking, yet understandable now in some capacity, why she did that. Like she feels the pace of where she is, the kind of people that are there. She feels she's akin to. Like she feels a calling, a pulling to her home and her family of origin. And when I think of nurture our nature, sometimes I think love has no say, you know. Because that's your baby.

That's your kid. That's right. That's your kid. That's my kid. that's my kid and you know she's uh suffering and struggling with different challenges that um you know i wouldn't really wish on any family and um as as as you hit 25 and and and you don't have your parents to protect you anymore you're not a child you um are out there on your own and and sometimes most times without a family that's a terrifying place

to be. What is adoption trauma? Adoption trauma is the fact that the baby sitting in the amniotic fluid with the cortisol flipping out from the mother who's going to have to do this thing that she doesn't really want to do, place the baby or wants to do or needs to do, but feels she can't do. It's all of that cortisol stew that the baby's in and then, you know, hearing the voices of the mother and the father, hearing the voices and the smell. There's a lot. There's actually smells that baby takes from the mom. And then all of a sudden you're in this world and you're given to someone else and they don't smell the same. It's not the same heartbeat rate. And there's an initial primal wound that occurs with these adoption families. That's one of the premises of adoption trauma.

Now my son Blake, who's 23 and is getting married, you know, thinks it's a load of crap. He's like, Oh, yeah, I'm very traumatized by that when I was in a diaper. You know, but I mean, he's a New York tough guy, right? You know, he, I mean, Parker also, I think, does not feel traumatized at all. My two boys don't feel that. And, you know, Dakota is on the spectrum and had a beautiful interaction with her birth mother when she was five, asked to talk to her on the phone. And we found her and got her on the phone.

And she said, I just said, I just. just wanted to let you know, I'm the baby that was in your stomach. Oh, God. And I wanted you to know that I ended up with my mommy because she grabbed my finger and I wouldn't let go of her pinky. So I'm all good now and I just wanted to tell you so, bye. And she walked away from the phone. The birth mother's sobbing. I'm sobbing. And she never mentioned it again. Not once. But she sometimes says, I have an older sister. I have an older sister. I said, you have two older sisters. She said, no. My birth mother had a one-year-old at my, at the hospital when I was born. I heard you telling someone that. He said, well, you are right. That is right. Wow. Right. So, you know,

she goes, why didn't you ever tell me that? I'm like, I don't know, sweetheart. It wasn't a secret. I just didn't, I didn't know that that was something that you would want to know. I would want to know that mom. I said, okay. Sorry, he didn't tell you, you know. There's something about the brutal honesty of autism that is freeing. There's no artifice. You know, you can't. You have a lot of kids. I love it. Yeah, tell me. I'm the middle of five, right? I'm the middle of five and it was great. And across the street, Jackie had three and the Norton's had three and the Coutches had five. And, you know, all of us, we all grew up in this big, you know, posy of kids, our own age, playing kickball and kicked the can and red light green light one, two, three. And it was a glorious existence in that

capacity. And I always loved having a lot of siblings. I loved feeling in school like I had people to take care of me, should anything happen, you know. And I wanted a big family. I thought I would have eight to tell you the truth. And I ended up with five. But, and I'm done. I'm pretty sure. But I see another cute baby on TikTok. I can't promise anything. When my kids, you know, were born when I became a mom, you know, you have this very specific feeling that, like, your existence is different in a way that we'll never go back, no matter what. And, you know, I used to, you know, people talk about like, oh, my heart is outside of my body, you know. And there's all these, like, ways that people describe it. And the way I once described it to my kids was it's like being connected by an invisible string.

And no matter where they are, it's like I, and sometimes it can feel physical, you know, but it's like you're always attached. And I remember my little one, Fred, who was very tender, he said, that must be a very long string, mama. I said, yeah, yeah, it's a super long string. And, you know, you had a heart attack. Yes. at a very interesting time in your parenting life. And I can't help but thinking about, you know, that notion of your heart outside of your body,

you know, how it lives, you know, it lives in all your kids. What do you remember of that heart attack? You know, I had a radio show at the time and I was doing the radio show and I would walk up the hill. Like, you know, not a big hill, but a hill to get it would make me a little winded to get up to the hill to the house. And I remember it started being like, unbearably difficult. And then, you know, I was in the shower and washing my hair and my arms kind of hurt a little. Like I was like, that's so weird. Why do my by steps hurt? Right. Now, this is like already it's starting and I'm ignoring. I'm ignoring. Is this like days? This is the,

this is about two or three days. So on a Monday. So I felt this on a Friday. We did the radio show. So then we have Saturday, Sunday. So Monday, I go to the hospital with a friend who's doing chemo treatment on the way out, big, big woman stuck in a car, little car. Her hair was falling out from chemo. She had a walker. I don't know how she got it out of the car. She gets out of the car and she asked me to help her and I helped her pull and it took a long time. It took like 25 minutes and we get her out and get her on her walk her and get her in the thing. And then my arms are really hurting. And I'm thinking, this is from lifting up that woman. I'm so tired. I better go to bed. So I go to bed

I fall asleep I wake up I'm white as can be my kids go Mommy you look like a ghost I take some baby aspirin I get Ziploc bags You're still not thinking

Maybe I should go to the hospital At this point I type it in You're not thinking about it Women's hard at I had like eight out of the nine symptoms But you know what else I was thinking Tyne Daly went to the hospital In Rockland County where I lived in Nyack Hospital

When she was a kid and she had like her appendix exploded and she has a huge scar on her stomach. So I remember thinking, Tyne Daly told me never to go to that hospital. And that's what I was in my deluded state. I kept thinking, Tyne Daly said, you know, Cagney and Lacey said, don't go there. But I ended up going two days later on a Wednesday. I get in the doctor's office. I hadn't been before. I say, listen, I helped this woman. And he said, could you stop talking? And he picks up the phone and very gently says something. And he hangs up. And then people are running down the hall. I hear running. And then they're lifting me and putting me and throwing me. You're in the hospital. You're going to the emergency room. You're going to the cat's lab. You've had a

massive heart attack. I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, no, you've had a massive heart attack. I said, I have four kids. Do not let me die. Do not let me die. And this one woman, it was so nice, this nurse, I start to cry as they were going to put me under. And she said, look, look at me. Look at me. I'm going to be here when you wake up. And when I was awake, she was there. And she ended up being the most lovely nurse. I'm telling you, nurses are the heartbeat of any strong hospital. And their job is to love people back to life. Can you imagine having that be your job? No. I mean, I try and make people laugh. Me too. That's hard enough. So what did they do when they put your heart back together? Yes, they put in a stent. And then they had me lose weight.

I went on, I got a vertical gastric sleeve right after I was 50. I'm 61 now, so it's been 11 years. And, you know, I have to keep my weight in the 190s, which, you know, I'm doing and I've been doing for a little bit, you know, so the woman is very happy with my numbers. The cardiologist is the doctor. It's wonderful. And, you know, she's like, you know, I'm taking that drug, Manjaro because I have diabetes. and I'm taking the lowest dose though

because we're not doing it for weight loss we're doing it to get these numbers to a certain number and it's doing it. So right now I think I don't even technically have diabetes because my A1C went from a 7 to a 6.2. Oh my gosh. I wanted to also ask you, you know,

in terms of your heart. Yes. And the things that, you know, your body and your spirit and your, you know, the things that you've been through, your ex-wife, Michelle, she died by suicide. Yes, she did. And, you know, this is one of those things, like, I couldn't decide. I'm like, I don't really want to ask you about it because it's, A, not my business.

And B, I kind of thought, you know, there's so much that, that you represent for so many people. And there's so many experiences that you've chosen to be so brave about. Yes. And obviously that story is hers. God rest her soul. But I wonder if you can sort of speak about, you know, what it's like to be a public person, you know,

who is addressing things that are so incredibly personal. And also it wasn't your current spouse, you know, But I'm curious, you know, what, like how do you frame that? I understand. And it's hard because I didn't quite know how to frame it because she had moved on and married someone else and had a child with that other person. And she had given up her rights to Dakota. And, you know, she got very sick very quickly. And she had desmoid tumors, which are a gelatinous cancerous mass.

that was really affecting her ability to live and to consume food. And, you know, it was a very difficult time. We were together for a year and then she got cancer. And then she got addicted to the pain meds from cancer. And I really was not good at noticing that that was happening. Now, give me an alcoholic anywhere in a room and I can spot them in five seconds. But I didn't know from pill addiction. I didn't know what was happening.

I thought this was a reaction to the cancer. She was in some trauma and therapy. And then, you know what? She just decided that she wanted to move on with her life. And she went. And that was that. And I hadn't really seen her or talked to her. And then her new wife called, and I was on the set of Smilf.

And she told me, I'm Michelle Rounds new wife and I said oh is she in trouble did she try to kill herself again because she had tried to kill herself once at the end of our relationship and she said she did

try and she succeeded yeah and I was in shock you know I was in shock really I had had two friends die who were dying of AIDS who took suicide as a way out with pills and a peaceful decision that, you know, covered in carpies and really having no other choice. But I never really suffered the suicide of someone close to me. And it was stunning.

It took my knees out. Like I didn't quite know where to put that, you know. In terms of your parenting responsibilities also, you know, what, what is that, what was that balance like for you. Well, you know, it was interesting because Michelle had been so sick there in the house with the little kids throwing up and everything and the cancer was back and it was scary and crazy and there was a new baby and there was a lot of chaos. And, you know, I tried to protect them from it as much as I could. Kelly was helpful and, you know, but that's the first thing you think about, you know, is that this. Right. Right. How did it? I not see, number one. And number two, how do I protect their little, their little hearts from

the knowledge that that is a sad truth to so many, you know, to too many as an option, you know, once it becomes an option. Well, and I think also, you know, I know more about alcoholism than I do about this kind of addiction that we're talking about. But, you know, I think also it is so connected to pain. And, you know, in many cases to physical and chronic pain, but also some of the work that I've been doing just in my own journey is also the, you know, this knowledge that we are now having as more of a mainstream concept that what happens to us mentally impacts the way we also perceive pain, both the way we perceive physical pain and the way we sort of frame all of the pain and trauma, you know, that we've experienced.

Is there anything that's sort of in retrospect, you know, now that there's some distance from it? Is there anything that, you know, that you think about in terms of sort of, I don't know, I guess what alcoholism does for pain versus what, you know, these other kind of roots do for pain? Yeah, you know, I mean, you know, Chelsea struggles with addiction. and, you know, came about it honestly. She was born addicted as an infant.

And that is the one I used to beat myself up parent-wise. And I go to meetings and I go to talk to other parents in similar situations. And I understand what's going on and it's not about me and it's a disease. And I go through it, you know, I do. but that's the most difficult thing I've had to endure. And I don't think that she understands, you know. I don't think maybe until she's out of it and hopefully she will one day be out of it,

that, you know, she will understand, you know. I got frustrated with her the other night and texted her, you know, I pray to God that your kids never go through this, Chelsea. You know, not a kind thing to say, but kind of at the end of my rope going, you know, do you know what's, what this does to everyone, you know? But when you're that deep in it, I don't know that you do. Yeah.

Yeah, it has tentacles, you know. Yeah. You know, there's so many aspects of your career that we didn't get to touch on. And, you know, kind of, you know, you had in particular, you know, two separate stints on the view, you know, as part of, this kind of like group of women and, you know, it put you in a position to speak up in ways that were, you know, really powerful and, you know, for those of us who happened to agree with you on a lot of things, very empowering. Thank you very much. Thank you. For those of us watching.

But, you know, I wonder, you know, when I think about the arc of kind of row, you know, and sort of what started as, you know, when I think of how you described yourself as a kid and and as this kind of like feisty teenager, you know, pulling jokes off of, you know, albums, you know, when I think about sort of the view as sort of the other, you know, the other end of that spectrum, this is you as, you know, a woman owning all of yourself, all of your, you know, your gender, your sexuality, you know, being very clear about who you are and still being in this position to sort of, is that a, was it an episode by episode set of decisions of like, where do I speak up? what do I say?

No. Or was it, yeah, tell me about how that kind of evolved. You know, you want to ask me my opinion on anything I usually give it, you know, sometimes to the detriment and sometimes. But I want to talk about things. I want to talk about things. If Bill Cosby is accused of sedating and raping all these women and it's the number one story in the news, I want to talk about that, yes.

But, you know, things that were happening like war would be happening. And we'd be talking about, you know, some person who had an affair and should the friend have told. And, you know, I don't think it lifted women up in a way that women deserve to be lifted up. And I don't think that it was, you know, it's a show about women and women's point of view and it's run by men. So Bill Getty was the producer and he was a right-wing Republican. And, you know, he had his agenda. And he and Elizabeth Hasselbeck would do a little huddle before the show and, you know, read the Republican talking point.

and then, you know, get on there. But, you know, listen, it's been on a long time and people enjoy it. And, you know, I don't think the best use of my time. And it's not, I don't want to be a pundit. I happen to be, you know, opinionated and outspoken. So I don't worry about my career when there's something that I believe in. I was on the view. I don't think our paths crossed directly, but I was on the view. I wrote a book called Beyond the Sling about my family's experience with attachment parenting, which I think is fantastic and fascinating. Thank you. But at the time, people thought I had gone bananas, right? And also I'm, you know, I'm educated as a neuroscientist. I studied child development. Like, you know, this is like literally I was trained to study attachment

and oxytocin and people thought I had lost my ever-loving mind, which the fact is, you know, the notion of everybody gets to parent the way. way they want to was really not a thing. You know, my first son was born. I was 29 years old. It was 2005. But there really was this notion of like, there's one way to do it. And if it's not whatever the current, you know, sort of Western medicine model is,

you're nuts. So whatever, I wrote a book about it. I'm completely aware that there were things in there that people were like, that's crazy. Fine. I went on the show and I had a very pleasant time. And what I know to be true is that when I got divorced from my husband, we were together a total of how long was I I got? Fifteen years we were together and we

were married for nine. What I was told was that there was a discussion about it as they do and someone said that's what you get. That's what you get for parenting that way. A divorce is what you get? Right. Yeah. I wonder who that was.

Well, if you let your kid sleep in your bed like you know, got to give him the vagina if he doesn't have The full accent, right, exactly. And at the time, I was like, that's astounding and it's disappointing. And I remember, though, it hurt me very deeply also as a feminist. It hurt me as a woman who made a decision to parent according to my instinct and what I believed was scientifically, you know, and psychologically appropriate. And that notion, you know, that a group of women would discuss that,

it just, it felt so, felt so strange to me. And it's really interesting, though, because when I compare, you know, my kid is 17. And when I see the way we interact and the way they interact with their dad, you know, and what even a divorced family can look like, that it's still a family, you know? And when I think about it, it's like, wow, I wish I had the confidence I have now, right? I needed then. And so when you talk about kind of your experience, it's different because it wasn't you being, let's say, attacked because you breastfed or whatever. But that notion that it feels like you have so much more security now, you know, in that decision. And I wonder, you know, as you see what the political climate is like now, what feels most important to you? Like if you were to be in that position, and obviously with your podcast, that might be part of what you do.

But, you know, for me, as a woman, as a feminist, as a liberal, you know, there's things that I feel are most important. And if you had to name like three things that you feel would be most important in that kind of arena to talk about, what would they be? Women's rights, abortion, number one, I think. Because when women's rights are imposed upon and when we're taken away and our equality is lessened and the whole family suffers from women not getting paid enough money to women who are getting sexually exploited in work, Like, the women's rights and I'm a feminist. I am a diehard feminist. I will always be a feminist. I don't think that puts me in a box.

It puts me in, in my opinion, a house with open doors for other women to come in and be safe and have a place where we are each other's sisters and mothers and daughters. And it's, to me, the most vital part right now. The second thing would be racism in America, anti-Semitism. It's, you know, it is startling to put on your TikTok. And I think this is part of the reason they're trying to ban TikTok. And you can see, you know, black people being nearly killed by police officers. You can see, you know, these horrible people, screaming at people of color or Jews or Chinese people.

You know, the way that we're going towards fascism, anyone who studied history needs to be terrified. And every woman needs to know that they have to vote in their own interest to save themselves and their children. And I hope to God it happens. Those two issues, human rights, which is women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, LGBTQ rights,

trans rights, you know, so vital. And we have to really watch who they are targeting. And right now it feels like it's trans people. They're targeting trans people

as the ones that are causing all the distress. It was the gays when they wanted to get married, right? But now it's the trans people who, you know, want to put on a little drag show. It's terrifying to me

politically what's happened. Yeah, I don't even think, I mean, we don't even need a third because those two are so good. But I also do just want to give a nod because, again, I do feel very, very close to the generation of feminists that you are. And I like to remind people that, you know, the definition of feminism, that sort of old school academic, you know, we call ourselves second wave feminists. You know, the notion was that we are not just fighting for women's rights. We're fighting for human rights. And the notion was that women have some sort of innate or intuitive. or instinctual notion that the rights of people of all races, class, classes, and genders need to be

cared for. And that, you know, is so much for me at the forefront of the activism that I do choose to do. There's so many important aspects of third-wave feminism. I think there's fourth wave now. God bless them. But I really appreciate you highlighting, again, some of those old-school traditions of, you know, the women whose shoulders we stand on. Right. And to look, you know, when I look at the women who made me go, holy shit, Anne Richards, look what Anne Richards did, you know, look at Shirley Chisholm. Look at these Bella Abzug. Look at these women who refuse to shut up. And if you're a woman who has access to a microphone, use it, you know, use it. Well, what a fantastic way to end our

time together because I am so grateful that you came and sat at a microphone with me. I respect you greatly and I happen to agree with you on everything. But even if I didn't, I still respect you. And I remember when you came out with that book and I thought it was so amazing. I kind of did that myself without it having a name. I didn't have the name for it. But those kids were in baby Bjorns for a long time. And there's nothing that I love more than that. And my 10 year old still sleeps with me every night. And, you know, the doctors, we talk about it and with her talking doctor and my talking doctor. And, you know, they say when she's 16, she's not going to want to do it. So just, you know, ride it out. I go figure I support your right as a mother to make decisions

that are appropriate for your family. Thank you so much. And I support your right to do that as well. Thank you so much for being here. I wish you all the best. I admire you so much. And I admire your brain. love you on Jeopardy. I love it. Thank you. So much. We're a nightly Jeopardy Watcher. Wonderful. Well, I will think of you when I'm up there in my snazzy blazer. All right. I will. Thank you so much for being part of our breakdown. And yeah, thank you so much. It's My and Beallelix Breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience Ph. Ph.D. or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. She's going to break it down.