We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Rosie O’Donnell: Why She Really Left & Her New Ireland Life

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

The legendary, hilarious, and ferociously tender Rosie O’Donnell is here for an unfiltered conversation about how to survive the world while feeling it all. We discuss: - Why she left the U.S.—and how her new life in Ireland is healing her for the very first time;   - How to be a mother when you’ve lost your mother; and - The letter Rosie wrote right after Abby’s DUI—and how it helped her heal.   Pod Squad: Keep going hard and staying soft. We love you.  About Rosie O’Donnell:  Rosie O’Donnell is an Emmy Award–winning comedian, actor, producer, and cultural force who has shaped American entertainment for more than four decades. She first rose to national prominence as a stand-up comic and film actor before hosting The Rosie O’Donnell Show, which became one of the most celebrated daytime programs of its era and earned multiple Daytime Emmy Awards. Rosie’s film and television career has spanned everything from A League of Their Own and Sleepless in Seattle to acclaimed roles on The L Word, Curb Your Enthusiasm, SMILF, and And Just Like That. A passionate advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, children and families, and gun violence prevention, she founded Rosie’s Theater Kids and has raised millions for charitable causes throughout her career. Now living in Ireland, Rosie continues to write, paint, make art, and use her voice for justice. 

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. It's a terribly exciting day. Today we have Rosie O'Donnell. We're not doing a bio for Rosie because Rosie is in a league of their own. That's good. I'm mute like my kid. Okay, my favorite thing about this episode, she's talking about growing up, losing her mom,

and how living in Ireland is healing her. for the very first time. She talks about the first time she ever got a hug when she was 12 and the teacher that changed her life. My favorite part of the whole show was when she talked about the letter that she wrote to you, Abby, when you got your DUI and how it came out of her daughter's struggle with substance abuse, just a deeply human,

deeply Irish conversation. Also, I've made this connection today that maybe a league of their own was like a really big important reason in the start of women's sports and the rise of women's sports in this country. I made that connection today. Thank you, Rosie. Look at you connected dots. The O'Donnell Dots connected today. You're going to want to stick around. Oh, my God.

I have been waiting for this moment. Oh, gosh. How are you? How are you guys? I feel like I know you. I watch you all the time. I listen to what you say. I love the money you're raising for charity.

I'm like, look at them doing good in the world. And you being so honest and telling the truth about what you go, you're very freaking inspiring. Oh, Rosie. Back at you. Yes. We have learned. from the best. Yeah. Well, you're doing great, is all I can say. And, uh, hello, sister.

Hi, Miss O'Donnell. Look at you. It's such a joy to be with you. Excellent. Well, I love the sister bond you guys have. Thank you. Thank you. Rosie, what's on your mind right now? And I'm trying to keep steady. I'm trying to keep my mental health in check. You know, my shrink said to me last week, make sure you're calling your psycho pharmacologist, so I did. And I said, you know, my shrink wanted me to make sure that I'm calling you and having a check-in. And, you know, he was like, I think you have a justifiable reaction to the realities that's happening in the world right now. So don't think this is all on you. This is like the world in crisis in our lifetime and who could have ever predicted this, right?

I'm so glad that you said that. I feel like it is probably more of a sign of a mental disorder if you are not breaking down right now. I feel the same exact way, I feel like I want to say to my therapist, why aren't you this upset? You know, and why aren't you this upset? How many babies do we have to see and taking their last breath? How do we have to watch snuff films every day? on what should be the mainstream media. It's absolutely overwhelming to me and shocking.

And I try to keep it all, you know, in check while doing what I feel is my civic responsibility. What are your strategies? Yeah, we help us. The reason I'm asking you that is because I'm not asking anybody that whose strategy seems to be hiding and not facing reality and not speaking up or using their agency in the way they can. You are using your agency in such beautiful ways.

So you, I am asking. And what else do you do to maintain your one wild and precious life? You know, I have to say I have this little angel of a human who's 12 who has autism. And the gift of this child, you know, I was 50. I had had a heart attack. I got a call from the lawyer saying there was a birth mom who didn't want a dad in the family. And did I know any lesbians who were waiting with a current home study? And I keep my home study updated all the time just in case a phone call like this happens.

Wow. And I had just had a heart attack. And it was my first open adoption. This is my fifth child. And I had some foster kids as well in the interim, but my fifth adopted child. And they had been diagnosed at two with autism. And it's been the most wonderfully beautiful, expanding experience emotionally of my life. And so I'm very lucky to have that grounding me.

I'm very lucky to have her the truth of who she is and what she goes through. You know, yesterday we had a hard day. she's 12 years old and has only had seven meltdowns in her life so that's every other year right for an autistic kid it's pretty miraculous and yesterday was one of them and um i woke up late at 7.30 it's normally seven and they like the routine you know and um why did you wake me up so late i don't like this food in my lunch i'm not wearing these pants i'm not you know everything went wrong and then she broke and they broke sorry the she that is hard I got they on my arms see that they would know I'm trying but every time that I say she they say to me looks like your tattoo's not working so you know they keep me on my toes I can tell you that much but all of the stress of having moved here and you know we've only we only got here in January and that's a

a lot for an autistic kid. It's a lot for a 63-year-old woman. But I knew, because I read Project 2025 what was coming, I knew that this would be the reality in America now, and I knew that my emotional help would not be able to take it. I wouldn't be able to be in L.A. where I was and watched them taking people off the streets. I knew I couldn't watch the desecration of everything that Americans hold dear and sit there in my, you know, lovely house in Santa Monica and not know what to do. I knew I had to protect myself and this little non-binary autistic 12-year-old from all the horrors that were about to happen, and they have, you know. And I'm grateful every day that I'm here. I'm grateful every day that I'm here. I'm grateful every day that

people in my life believe me because I'm not a traveler ladies I don't travel I don't go to Europe you know like I like to stay in the United States where I can say I think it's my appendix it could be my goldbladder in the emergency you know I like to know where my kids are I like to know well I've never been a world traveler so when when he got the nomination and then I read project 2025 and then he actually won I said okay, here we go. We're going to implement the plan. And the plan was to get to Ireland as quickly and as quietly as possible. I was never one of those celebrities who said, if he wins, I'm going to go

because I never imagined that he would win the first time or the second time. But I knew I had to leave. And so we did it. And we got out before the inauguration, which I thought would be the safest thing to do. And then, you know, what has happened was expected by me, but it still is shocking and so disorienting to think that this is America. And my children, my grown children are there, and it's the country that I love. And, you know, he's threatening to take away my citizenship, which you can't do, although with this Supreme Court there, you never know what they'll give him the right to do because it changes every day. It's less and less like America.

And, you know, I try to keep my head above the water and keep treading and use my voice whenever I have a platform and speak to like-minded individuals to encourage and inspire me. I look at all the people standing up to him and we're all in shock and we're all in trauma and we have our own trauma experiences. that we relate to it and how do we as a country heal and one way that i think it is is to forgive the people who finally see the light i see so many times on ticto say i'm sorry i didn't know i was lied to by the apprentice i was lied to by fox news i believed it i'm sorry and then you see

people on the left saying you know you did this it's your fault screw you you deserve what you No, no, no. It's time to welcome everyone back from the cultish reality that they've been living in, the lies that they've been living in, and say, we are America. Remember who we are. Remember what we fought for. Remember where we were before we heard his name in a political context that was actually viable. Rosie, do you ever, I feel so confused about how and where to use my voice because, I believe, like, I quit social media for a long time because I felt like, oh, this is a nightmare. And it's not a place, it's not a responsible thing for a leader of any kind to even host people on this site. Because I am bringing them here. And it's a cesspool of what is destroying us. But also, I don't know where else to use my voice. I also don't want to abandon everybody right now.

That is the place where, you know, brave, sane voices. can speak out but rosy i feel like abby and i were talking last night to a friend like we might just have to truly get the hell off of social media to save our souls well i believe that i believe that in many many ways but you know in another way if you uh had the luxury i've been given being given a microphone of any capacity in today's world as a woman as a gay woman as a woman period because you know there's a war with us, and we are next in their hierarchy of who they can take out, you know, the brown people, the black people, the trans people, and next it's the women and the gay people all together, you know, and I mean, you don't need to be a brainiac to figure that out.

I lost her audio. Hold on one second. Rosie, we lost your audio. I lost your audio. Do you lose her audio, Amanda? Maybe you accidentally press mute. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened. I turned up my phone in case it was that, but I have to say, and everything. Everyone who's terrified there in America, I understand, and, you know, people who say, why did you go? You know, I had to. I had to protect myself. It was self-preservation, number one. I didn't do so well when he was in the first term. I was overeating. I was over-drinking. I was depressed beyond an ability to articulate how depressed I was. And my friends, he said, get your ass here. You're talking to some Irish girls here?

all three yeah what is it like there what is it i've never even been and i feel it in my bones what is it like to live there what is what is it well i have to say glennan it's been glorious because everyone has been so welcoming and i know that um billy eyelish said this and people got honor for it but i'm going to confirm what she said there's something about walking down the street and seeing so many people with your face. So I'm not saying that's what I chose or I wanted to only see people like me. And I don't think that's what Billy Eilish was saying either. But there's something about seeing your genetic heritage, your DNA on the faces of the people

you pass in the street. Like I'm confronted with my family and myself on a daily basis. I go to the testo shopping and I see an 88-year-old. woman taking the peaches and squeezing, and I think had my mother lived, that's what would have been my mom. And I see a 10-year-old girl, and I'm like, oh, my God, that was me. And, you know, it feels here like it felt to me in the 70s in America. It feels much more innocent. It feels much more community-based. It feels much more empathetic and caring. It feels, now, mind you, this whole country is the size of West Virginia, I believe, or North Carolina. You know, it's tiny

comparatively. And so the culture that you feel here overwhelms and inspires on a daily basis. The commercials for rugby have me crying, right? They're like, you know, when you play one of us, you play us all. And then everyone in the stands comes down and puts their arms out. And I'm like, saw it at home watching it on TV, you know. I mean, there's there's a culture here that is not obsessed with materialism and celebrity. And that has been exceptionally freeing for me. That when you do recognize me or see me, you know what they say? They say, welcome to Ireland. You belong here. We're glad you're here, Rosie. Hope you're doing well. That's what they say to me. Nobody says, could I have your autograph or could I have your or what do you know about this celebrity or that? They're

not a celebrity-based culture. And I remember reading years ago when Beyonce and Jay-Z were here with their babies when they were little and they were in one of the greens, you know, which is the park, but they called the green here. And they were not bothered the whole day. And they were kind of like around like, what is this? But that's what it's like. It is not a celebrity defined or a celebrity-obsessed culture, which is unbelievably freeing for me. I bet so much of what we're talking about it seems to me that you know the trauma of living through what we are right now and I'm wondering about you know you in many ways going to the place where you are descended from what has that done for you and the trauma of losing your mom so young I mean that was you were 10 and I just imagine that there's a that place in you. you that is still there has this has this done anything for you being so close oh yeah well first of all after my mother died my father took his five bereaved children to duny gall as close as you could get

to northern woman without being in it in 1973 at the height of the troubles oh my god that's a whole story he took us to a war zone right but he didn't know and he was suffering and he didn't you know was trying to figure out what do I do. And so now that I see, I was 11 when we came here that summer, and now I brought an 11-year-old over with me. And they turned 12 while we were here. And I think of how the cycle of life, the circle of life, how it all comes back around.

And, you know, when I was here, when I was young, it was scary and it was overwhelming, but it was also kind of unifying for our. family. There were all these cousins and aunts and uncles that we didn't know that were all on my father's side and it felt like home in a way. And then sadly when we got home, everything of my mothers had been taken out of the house at my father's request by the neighbors and the aunts and uncles. So there was nothing left in my house of my moms besides her Barbara Streisand albums, which no one knew that she would listen to every day when we came home from school.

So that was the only connection that I had to having a dead mother because you couldn't talk about having a dead mother. Nobody was, you know, watching Oprah back then going, how do you deal with a dead mom for your children? You know, now there are millions of books and there are people like Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughter's Legacy of Loss, that book, teal me in so many ways that workbook and her work that she's done in this area. You know, it's a hole inside you that I don't think ever goes away. And for me, I know it hasn't. And it's shaped every part of my life.

It's shaped every facet of my being a mother to try to be a mother while you're motherless is very difficult because, you know, you don't have. all those memories of what you went through. You know, when my children at the normal age of teenagers started pushing away and demanding their independence, I completely had a breakdown, you know. I was like, wait a second, what is this? I didn't do this.

She died before I could do this. Why are you doing this to me? I love you more than anything. This is horrible. You can't be treating me like this. I did everything that I imagined I would have wanted if I had a mother. and it's still you're pushing away. Well, that's human nature.

Kids have to push away. But, you know, tell me that 27 years in therapy. And I still don't believe it. It's another abandonment. The closest person to you abandoned you, your mother and again. Yes. And this, you know, this boy, my oldest boy, Parker. I made him go to therapy with me when he was 14.

And he was like, you know, I want to go out with my friends and see movies and hang out with them. And, you know, and I'm sobbing for 40 minutes. of the session like crying saying, we used to be friends and he used to tell me things and he doesn't it? And finally, at the end of the session, the doctor said to him, do you have anything to say? And he said, yes. Do you think you could adjust her medication? Okay. And you know what? He was right because they did adjust it and it all worked out a little bit better. So I'm just saying, you know, it wasn't really wrong of him. But that's, you know, when you don't have a mother and then you're faced with these maternal hurdles that if you did have a mother, you remembered, oh,

I went through this with my mother, but we got past it and then I, you know, went to college and it got better, you know. I didn't have that to know, you know. It's very hard, but it's, it's, it's brought me closer to my mother. I finished the fringe festival in Scotland with a one woman show that I wrote about my mother and mothering this little autistic child that I have and all of my other children and what I did right and what I did wrong and coming to terms with her death and I had tried to do this for many, many years, even with playwrights helping me and I never could do it. But once I got here, I was able to do it. Wow. Why? Why do you think? I think because I was able to sort of see her as a whole woman. I was, you know,

she wanted to come to Ireland and never got to come. And my whole life I set up with her details, like she died at 39. So by 40, I was going to retire. And I did. I left my show when I turned 40. And people were like, why did you leave your show? I'm like, first of all, they told I had Oprah money and I did and I said there's no reason to work so I'm going to go take care of my kids you know because I I never got to have a mother come to see me play basketball or see me in a play at school and that's all that I wanted I used to dream of it when I was on the basketball court I would like make a shot and then I'd look around to see if she was there clapping you know because that that was the primary pull of my life I remember Nora Ephron saying are you

ever going to get over that and I sent to her I don't think so you know because it was defining part of you believe that she didn't die that like yeah that you kept looking for her places like maybe she just went away and she's coming back so well I thought she was kidnapped like patty hurst because patty hurst had been kidnapped right around that time by the sLA and I remember there was a photo of her with longer hair and a beret and a machine gun and a bank and I remember thinking well this could have happened to my mother because when no one tells a kid something you'll make up anything in order to find some sort of reason for it to all have happened and so I remember thinking well when my mother gets free of the SLA and she comes back you know so I thought maybe she would fly in

and see me at my games you know because I was a big athlete in school and And, you know, I thought maybe she would see me in the plays I was doing. But, you know, when I got out of high school, I went to college, and that was the first time I had to tell my roommate that my mother had died. It was the first time I admitted it. And I was in fifth grade when she died. Wow. And Diane Kennedy, nice Irish girl from Boston, said, you talk about your dad a lot,

but you never mention your mom. And I, like, remember thinking, do I do what I've normally? done, which is to lie. Like I would lie to people on the phone when they'd say, is your mother home? I'd say, no, she's in the shower because I didn't want to say the truth and I didn't really believe the truth. I guess I couldn't believe the truth, you know? So I said to her, no, my mother died when I was 10 and she was like, what? You know, because it's very rare. There was no other kid in our school that had a mother die, you know, in our elementary school. We were it. And my mother was the head of the PTA in our elementary school.

And so after she died, they put a plaque up on the wall. And it was a stone wall. So I remember thinking it looked like a grave. And it said, Roseanne O'Donnell, what we are given, we shall keep. And I remember thinking maybe that's where her body was in the middle of the wall in my school. You know, like the things that kids will tell themselves if you don't tell them the truth. you know so it's why i'm i'm a very very fierce truth teller in my life in every capacity and it hasn't always served me but it's the only way i know how to live you know it may not have

always served you but it's always served the rest of us oh well thank you for saying that that's very sweet when you lose your mom that early do you just lose your sense of safety on the planet yes and if so have you ever found that again because it's the abandoning It's really interesting. It's like you're abandoned by your safe place with your mom. I also understand the very, having a very, very hard time with kids separating. I'm not doing that gracefully. And then the country not becoming a safe space. Like is this, do you ever feel safety? No, I don't really. But I try to not buy into it. When I am forced to watch like I was as a kid during the Vietnam War, murder and mayhem and chaos on TV, which I did in the 1970s when before my mother died right around that same time Saigon was falling and it was on the news 24-7. You know, I would cry and say to my father, you know, we have to help them. We have to help them.

How can we help them? And he would say, go to your room. You're not allowed to watch the news anymore because it was too painful for me. I was too, I felt too much for my own family to understand, you know. And like they would often say to me, this didn't happen to you. Like it doesn't happen to me in order for it me to feel it. You know, and Shrink once said, most people have a window and then a glass pane and a screen and a shade and curtains and shutters. you said and you all your windows are open to the outside so everything comes in you don't have any way

to kind of filter it that's very helpful because that's my wife that's a very helpful i feel very connected to you glenn and i know all about you i've read all about you all these years we never really got to have this kind of one-on-one conversation but i've always felt based on what i know about you and what I've felt and observed all these years, that we were very similar in our essence, you know, and that, you know, you are the pain that you feel for others, I feel as well. And, you know, it's what inspires you to do the great work with your foundation

and to give away all of this money and to throw light on the darkness. You know, the day after 9-11, I called every celebrity I knew, But now, mind you, I was not in a good place, and I'm admitting that. So I don't know how my calls were received. You know, mind you, I'm hysterical and screaming at, you know, Julia Roberts. You have to give a million dollars. You have to, because my goal was the next day to have $100 million, not by anyone's name, just from the entertainment community, thrown at what we thought would be the survivors and the burn units.

but there weren't any, right? But at the time, that was what I thought. So how do you throw light on the dark? And every time that I hear of something else that your foundation has done, I think she's doing exactly that, right? You can't just sit by and go, yeah, I'm not going to worry about that.

You know, and these billionaires who I don't understand, that they don't understand, the joy they would get from open, opening an emergency room named after Rosa Parks and every city in the country might be a good way to spend some of their money instead of just amassing more and what it would do for them spiritually and emotionally. The mourness, I think, is at the heart of everything.

And I do, too. I have this, like, weird memory of the first time I sat with Oprah at the end of the interview she said we were just talking about my book and then she looked at me and said what is at the heart of racism and i was like fuck right and i said fear and it still bugs me probably every night because that's not true i think what's at the heart of it is greed greed is the driving force, the mourness, the conquering, the inability to sit and be grateful for what you have, the drive that keeps these men needing more land, needing more power, needing whatever. That's the thing. Then they make up racism. They make it up. We'll just think about

America. Like we needed more, more, more, more, more. So we have to create a way of thinking that makes people think that a different group is less than them so that we can justify bringing the slaves over so that we can justify genocide. So we have to make this up in their head. We have to create a poison that makes them think that dehumanizes so that they can use these people's labor to build what we don't need. So true. And now it's exactly what the president and his administration is doing. Right. It's exactly that to diminish. deride all of these people and fraction them off and call them the doers of bad deeds and make them and their lives a joke so that you can put them in alligator alcatraz yeah you know when you're

saying keep spreading light it feels to me like a life and death situation just internally like a soul life or death because it's one thing for me to point greed greed greed this is what's doing it. And then it's another thing to look at my own hoarding and my own life. If it's a sickness that I can see, I can see it now. I can see it. We can all see what unchecked hoarding and greed and individualism does. And we're looking at it. So it feels like it's the most important thing in the world then to say if that is true, Maya Angela said if I'm human, nothing human can be foreign to me, which means what is unchecked in them is also inside. of me. And so I could have this equal and opposite reaction where I am looking inside and saying

if that's poison, then let me get it out of me. Let me live with such generosity and sharing and unhoording and community. Let me just do the polar opposite and see if it doesn't bring magic to me and the people around me. At the end of the day, as Joni Mitchell says, it all comes down to you. It all comes down to you. It all comes down to you because you can have these great philosophical understanding and this kind of meta concept of all the ills of the world. But at the end of the day, it comes down to you. And if you're still hoarding, food, clothing, love, money, if you're still doing that in your own life, you see how hard it is. It manifests specifically with individual people, but on a sociological scale, it manifests exponentially, right,

with all these billionaires and how we keep track of the billionaires and how, you know, we're saying very casually on the news, if they say it on the news, you know, Trump has made this many billions of dollars since being in office. There's an amalgamate clause, ladies and gentlemen, he's a grifter. What will it take for America to really look and see that? And now it's time for our ads. This year, I gave myself something that has genuinely made my life better. I built a little habit around watching classes on Masterclass.

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I think my favorite moment was, when this young boy did the opening announce and said that he had a Titanic postcard that his grandfather had given him because he had survived the Titanic and he was trying to sell it on the air in order to get his best friend's mother a bone marrow transplant.

And I called the producers of the movie Titanic and they were not interested in helping, but I called the producers of the musical on Broadway to Titanic and they said they would love to do it and that they would give the full price that the bone marrow transplant cost and we had the entire cast come on

as a surprise and sing and then take the postcard and give this boy a check to give to his best friend's mother who happened to be there as well. So those moments, the human interest moments are the moments that I remember. Now, of course, Barbara Streisand,

I don't even, I can't watch it still. People like, oh, I watch it every year. I'm like, I've never watched it because I put it on and I start to cry. So I can't even watch it, the whole thing, you know. Yes, because it felt like my mother was walking through the curtain. It felt like, you know, now listen, she's exactly 20 years older than me, Barbara Streisand. She's 83 now.

I'm 63. She's born on April 24th. She'll be 84. And, you know, she's not old enough to be my mother, but my mother revered her and loved her so much. And those records were the way that I stayed connected to her. So, you know, to me, that was like a manifestation of every moment of my childhood since my mother died. Like I remember thinking, you know, I'm going to be her friend one day. I'm going to know her and I'm going to tell her.

And then I got to, you know. And many years before, when I was on Star Search in 1984, I was 22 years old. And we were all, all the Star Search kids, we were all at the Planet Hollywood, which had just opened at the Beverly Center, or the hard rock, one of those two. And I think it was Planet Hollywood. And we saw Bet Midler sitting with a very young Sophie, my daughter, like a three or four-year-old. and the guys and the people from the show said let's go over and say hello to her and they all ran over and I stayed in my booth and when they came back they said why didn't you go I said because when I'm friends with her that would be embarrassing if she remembered and I was one of the people

annoying her at 1984 at the Bell Museum our daughter does that our daughter does that yeah she'll be like I'm not meeting that person with you I'm going to meet that person in 10 years on my own, and I don't want them to remember that I waddled up with you. Isn't that interesting? And I was sure, like your daughter probably is, like I was certain, you know. I went to a recently here in Ireland, a person who does a podcast. She's very good, and she was talking about manifesting. And I, you know, raised and had a comment. I said, wouldn't you advise before you can believe your manifestation, you have to have certainty. I had certainty. I'm sure, Ab, for you, you had certainty. You knew I was going to be the star soccer player in the

world. I was going to be in the Olympics. I was going to win all these things. I was going to, you know, you had to know it in order to live it, right? You have to dream it in order to live. Yeah, I knew it before women's soccer was even in the Olympics. I was writing, I will win a Olympic gold medal for women's soccer and there wasn't even the thing it wasn't even in the actual Olympics it's the weirdest that's manifesting of a lot that's manifest of things that didn't exist yet you know yeah you proved wrong that saying like if you see it you can become it that's actually not true you can become it even if you don't see it yeah if you dream it if you dream it you can live it that's what I think if you dream it you know I dreamed like people

said, were you surprised you became famous? I'm like, no. And you don't like to say that because it sounds so egotistical. It's not because I thought I was so great. I just saw the movie of what my life was going to be from the time I was very young. And I had a certainty about it so that in my high school yearbook, everyone said, say hi to Johnny Carson. No. Yes. My high school yearbook from 1980 before I even did stand-up comedy was say hi to Johnny Carson. I know we'll see on the Tonight Show because I would tell everyone, oh, I'm going to be on the Tonight Show. Then you you didn't know you I'm going to be the Tonight Show. You became Johnny Carson. Yeah, but I never got to be on it with him. I got to be on it with his guest hosts a couple times. But when

a League of Their Own came out was right when he was retiring and everybody wanted to go on a show to say goodbye, you know, so I couldn't get on. But that was my dream of my life was to be on with him. He was the best that ever did it, you know. And so that was like a dream not fulfilled, but still close enough, right? Pretty damn close. Is that true in other parts of your life, the ability to just know with certainty? Yes, I have a knowing that I always tell people. They go, how do you know? I'm like, because I know. Like, and I don't know how to explain that I know. And it sounds very woo-woo and everybody's like she's a little nuts you know and in some ways maybe i think i am but i you know i i have a knowing and a certainty about some things that uh like what else well i was

certain i was going to adopt a lot of children okay i knew it from the time i was very young and you know a lot of people were like well you don't know that you might get married i'm like not getting married lesbian not getting married not having a baby not doing it you know but i knew I would adopt because there was a teacher who took me under her wing. And first person to hug me, first person to say, I love you to me was a school teacher, a public school teacher. How old were you when you got your first hug? 12, they're about to be 13. She was, it was my, it was fifth grade that my mother died, and this was seventh grade. So two years later. And this was a brand new teacher. She was 27. And, you know, there was an English teacher.

teacher and my grandmother was in the hospital. My mother had died two years before and my grandmother was quite sick who had lived with us. And this one teacher, Mr. Kaplan, and I don't blame him because he didn't know, he said to the whole class, Roseanne, where's your homework? What's your mother's name? I'm going to call your mother. And I didn't answer. And he kept saying, come on, tell me your mother's name. I'm going to call your mother. And then somebody raised their hand and said, her mother died, and then I ran away from school. I ran in the woods till it was dark, and then I went into my neighbor's backyard and snuck into their basement. And that teacher found out that story, Pat Maravelle, her name was, and asked me, asked the school guidance

counselor if I could be her assistant in an eighth period. So she sat with me for 45 minutes every day for my entire junior high, seventh, eighth and night. And she was the first person to hug me and to say, I love you. And, you know, when she first hugged me, she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know what to do. You know, I didn't know you were supposed to put your arms. I just stood there like this, you know. And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to we can do hard things for free.

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Rosie, when did a league of their own come out? What was the year? You know, I think we filmed it in 92, and I think it came out. in 94 but I'm not exactly sure. I'm just I'm making this connection right now because that movie was really important to me growing up. I was 12, 14 years old when it was made and maybe came out and quite frankly women's sports became a thing. Yes. And I believe that potentially that your movie had a really big impact on that. Do you believe that? I do, and I believe it was all Penny Marshall.

She was a woman's sports freak. She was a feminist, even though I think she didn't like to think of herself as a feminist. She was older than me, and I don't know that she wasn't an ardent feminist like me. She was kind of a closeted feminist in some ways. She didn't necessarily want to have the banner, but she really supported women and women's sports and women. athletes in a way of no one else that I had met. And she loved sports. She was very athletic. She grew up with a mom who had a dance studio when she was a dancer in the Bronx. It was all her

vision. And I think she made a profound impact on women's sports in the history of the United States because of that movie. Totally. I mean, I see little kids coming to my door dressed as me. you know, and they don't know. After they leave, my, my daughter will say, Mommy, they didn't even know that you're Doris Murphy. I'm like, I know, I know. They don't know. It's just incredible. It's just incredible to me to think about that because I just want to say thank you for that. Like, I know that it was a job for you, but to be the kid who was consuming that at the time helped me develop those weird dreams. You know, that was like when I was around eighth grade. I believe that, you know. It's funny, when I did that scene on the bus where I said, you know, it was written. I didn't make it up. But, you know, I never felt like a real girl

or a normal girl. And then, you know, there's a lot of us and I think we're okay. So after I did that take, Penny said, Rosie, do it again, but don't do it so gay. She goes, you're doing it kind of gay. And I thought, it's a gay fucking speech. What do you expect?

but I didn't say that to her. I was like, oh, yeah, she goes, yeah, do it again. And I did it again the same exact way. She goes, much better. That was good. That was good. But that was the, you know, to me, that's what that speech said. And then we go to meet all these women.

And even though many, many were still closeted in the 90s from doing that in World War II, they would say, you know, hi, I'm Beverly. This is my roommate, Nancy. How long have you been roommates? 52 years. we got a rent control deal we couldn't give up exactly like i was like okay you know uh but so much has so many things have changed for gay women and and for women in sports i i remember i don't know abie you're too young but um when i was around that age that that you were

billy jean king and martina nabertilova were accused of being gay and they actually had to hold press conferences and deny it and they did and i remember it wounding me as a kid like feeling like oh my god it's such a bad thing that they can't even say it you know it really had a profound effect on me the fact that it was so foreboden you know that nobody could could even talk about it in any way and um so i was sure when i did that scene to make it as gay as i could yes and we appreciated it well you were speaking right to me i mean your whole character i was just like that's me so good yeah and i think my character was madly in love with may who was a straight girl but she was mad that's how i played it i was madly in love with her and you know would do whatever she wanted

and to be near her and and that was enough and you know i know from reading all these stories of older lesbians, which, you know, I would love to do a documentary series show where I just go around the country and meet senior lesbian couples and have them tell me their love story because that to me would be so fulfilling, you know, and I read all these stories about what they had to do in order to be with each other. And it's so heroic and so unbelievably inspiring and beautiful. And now with all these attacks on gay people and on trans people and you know, we have to remember our history. We have to remember where we've come from, you know, in my lifetime from that. Women I admire and adore having to say that in the time. And now

that they're icons of the gay community. And how long it took for us to get here. And let us not forget the ones who got us here you know it's so beautiful it makes me think of when you say the things that people deny or won't talk about i think about that in parenting all the time that we hide things from our kids because our like especially right now that we are anyone who's paying attention or who's awake is in so much pain and is afraid and is angry and we have this double thing where we we feel like we're supposed to be hiding all of that from our children. Right. It's like Rosie's dad saying you're not allowed to watch the news anymore. Right. Right. And there's some of that is good with kids. But I think I just want to say that maybe we have permission to show those

things in appropriate ways to our kids because when we don't show our fear, kids think, oh, mine is so bad that I can't even it must be so shameful to be afraid no one else feels right yeah yeah yeah it's so true and you know I have to say that you know it's always been a tightrope that I walk between how much to share and how much to not to my kids you know but they see my art you know when when Gaza started I couldn't help just like after 9-11 I kept all the newspapers and then I had to glue them on canvases and paint on them because I couldn't throw them out and so when when Gaza started started happening and I knew what was going to happen. I couldn't help but taking all the photos, getting them printed and then making collages with them to try to show people like the juxtaposition

of my healthy American child at that age and this baby that was bombed to death. And, you know, and for my whole life, I've done that. And when Parker got a little bit older, he's like, you know, it's so depressing, mom. You take like the worst thing that happened to a kid and put my picture right next to him. I was trying to show you can love your child so much at that age and give them everything and you can't protect them from what's going to happen. Yeah. You know, but I always have to walk that tightrope of knowing when it's too much and when, you know, when you have to sort of pull back and as my friends say, be the adult. Yeah. You have to be not the scared kid. Rosie, why does your bio say maybe you can just say Rosie O'Donnell, 40 years worth?

I don't know. Is that into my bio? I'm not sure. They said to me, they want to see a bio. I said, send them whatever. You don't know why. No, well, part of it is because I've been doing this for 40 years. And I think, what do you want me to like list all my credits? Like I'm doing this for 40 years. It's like just pick whatever you want. Like, and also, Also, when you're famous for that long, like, people ascribe a character to you, you know, because everyone, you know, takes you as a public figure and casts you as villain or hero. Yeah. Or somewhere in between. And you have to be all right with the fact that in their universe, their algorithm, their FYP, you are that to them.

But that doesn't mean you are that inately. I think one of the questions that people ask themselves most is, can I give what I've never gotten? So that is like a question of existence. If I've never experienced, if I've never seen healthy romantic love, can I create it in my life? If I've never been mothered, well, can I be a good mother? There seems to be this miracle where you can. So what did you do right? Well, I can, you know, first of all, the first thing I comes to my mind is the things I do wrong, right?

So I kind of had a child's version of what a mother should be. So I thought, if I only had a mother, this is how my mother would be. And that's the kind of mother that I was. But unbeknownst to me, they hadn't suffered the loss of their mothers. So they weren't thinking that. They were comparing me maybe to other mothers who were able to sort of function. within the confines of the archetype of mother in our society. But I kind of didn't know.

So I had a child's view. And what I wanted when I was a young kid was someone to take care of me and someone to smooth the road before me. And you know what I did, you guys? I made the road too smooth for my children. So that even the little speed bump throws them. because I made it all blacktop for them.

Let me just see what I can do. Let me go fix it in school. Let me see what I. How can I, your friends are having trouble? Come here. Let me see what I, let me pat down this blacktop and make it just, you don't have any bumps. Keep going. Keep going.

I love you. I love you. You know, we were not an I love you family. We were not a hugging family. So I over-emphasized all of that. You know, we were not a family that talked about feelings. So I constantly talk about feelings. Like when I, you know, I wrote my kids recently something about their trust, right?

Because they're getting to be older now. And so I go, we need to have a group family meeting about this. And I want to discuss with you the ramifications and the guidelines and whatnot. And all three of them wrote me back, do we have to? Can't you just write me an email? Like they didn't want all of my emotional Strominger. You know, let me tell you what it feels. like did I hope this is the right thing but I don't know I never knew anyone with a trust fund I didn't

know how to set it up it was probably a mistake I'm sorry 30 I don't know what I was doing you know and so I can tell you everything I did wrong but what I did right I think we're going to have to leave up to them you know we're going to have to leave that up to you know I always say listen you guys write the books as soon as I'm DOA right the day that they say she's done you go start writing that book, get a good deal, and write whatever your truth is, you know, because it's hard to live in the shadow of a famous mother. When you have kids and you, like you guys were walking through the mall with your babies, everybody would stop and say, oh, my God, those are the cutest babies in the world, right?

When you're with a famous mother, they stop and say, oh, my God, is that Rosie O'Donnell? And they ignore them. So, you know, there's a lot of life in the shadow when your mother's famous. And it's hard to get over that because kids are used to everyone thinking that they're adorable when they're adorable in four and five and six. But when they were that age, I was, you know, on TV every day in their living room. And that's a big shadow to be under, you know. Yeah, it sure is. What is one of the only things that's keeping me.

us saneish is art these days. Just diving into, I mean, sometimes when I turn from my phone to a book, I can just feel, I don't know if it's just that, I just can feel my nervous system calm. I can feel that I'm in a different world that is saner and slower and more beautiful and intentional and not designed to stress me out. Anyway, is there any, art lately, whether it's a book or a TV show or something, a song that has felt especially delightful and healing to you? Well, I've been listening to Hosier, since I've got here to Ireland, and I went to the electric picnic, which was my first music festival I'd ever been to. Chapel Rhone was on first, and she was astounding, and it was like excellence. Like every single

song was a music video and with different staging and choreography and the lighting it was like precise it was like a gaga show and then out comes this spiritual tall irish man who just hooked me away you know he took me away and i've been listening to um his music lately and painting you know i i do a lot of crafts for lack of a better word but like doodles and paints and And, you know, I'm not a trained artist in any way, but I love to do it. And when I need my brain to stop thinking, that's what I let my hands be busy. So lately I've been doing Legos, like enormous, like the gumbull machine Lego. Oh, nice.

It takes a lot, trust me. Yeah. And I'm painting and doing that. But there are people like Annie Lamont, who anytime she has anything, I run and grab it. And, you know, what do you think about that new Elizabeth Gilbert book? Well, Elizabeth Gilbert is one of my best friends. And I walked to read the book. Yeah, I walked through that with them.

We were there. When it was in the middle of that, did you know this was going on? I knew some of it, but I didn't know all of it. When I first read the book a while ago, I felt like, oh, my friend was going through so much more than I knew she was going through. My heart was hurt reading it. Yeah, it was so interesting. Maybe this is unfair, but I don't know her at all. Obviously, I've never met her, but I've read everything she's written. I felt like you presented me one story of Eat, Pray, Love, of you in sort of a mindset that I understood, and it turned out to be a completely different one. Oh, interesting.

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it made me. me go, really, Elizabeth Gilbert? Like, how did this happen to my Elizabeth Gilbert from Eat, Pray, Love? How did she get so lost in that? How did she not understand a woman who seemed to have so much introspective brilliance, not have anything in the midst of life? I mean, I can tell you that one of my favorite things in the world about Liz Gilbert is I think what you're touching on is one of the things that makes her so magical to me, which is that, so my faith tradition is Christianity. That's my first language. I always go to that. That's how I see the world, really. And there's something beautiful about like the Trinity, right, where there's God

and God always is just the spiritual knower of everything, just this wise sage knowing. And then there's the Jesus who's just like I'm just going to be human with you and like be all messy and go through everything and feel all the humanity of being human because that is love is being in it. And I always feel like Liz is both at the same time. Like Liz has this knowing that is a knowing a spiritual intelligence that I've never experienced with anyone else. Truly. I mean, Well, that's what I got from her book, right? So then this book, it felt like you took me on a U-turn, honey. What did you do?

I had you in a different place, just like I was saying about when you're famous, people cast you in a role. I cast a new role of sagy, spiritual, woman, feminist icon. I know, and she could live there. She knows that, and she could stay there. But like in my imagination, Jesus is like, I'm just, I could say. stay up there, but I'm going to come and roll around with you and experience all of it. She does that. Like, she's as wise as you think she is and she's as human as you think she is.

And she's both at the same time and she won't be pegged down in either one. And that's why everybody feels betrayed by her no matter what story she tells. Yeah. It must be hard. I also think that the time that Eat, Pray, Love came out, she, like the world was only accepting women that Liz wrote about in one one and in Eat, Pray, Love. And now it feels like what she's doing is beyond what is acceptable, what is acceptable right now, but she's creating the path for it.

She was doing something back then that was kind of revolutionary, like a woman going out on her own to figure her own life out and not being reliant on a man to do it. and now she this new book to me it's like not only it's like this this this idea of of a woman going through grief and what that looks like but really getting to the bottom of some of the the totality of our neurosis down here and what we kind of experience and to showcase it in a way and to go through it in the way that she kind of is doing publicly now obviously with the release of this book she's one of the baddest ass motherfuckers I know and also I think it's strange when people read eat pray love and think it was all sorted like eat pray love so what she

talks about so much is her desperation for love yeah and her desperation for and this is just i guess i as a person who have been i have been dealing with my thing with eating disorders since i was 10 and i am still in fucking recovery and still in some ways as clueless as i was when i was 10 i i have to assume I'm making some sort of progress, but it often doesn't feel like that. It just feels like this is my thing and going to be my thing that I circle around forever. And I think that's just Liz's thing. Yeah. And so she's... I guess you're right. I guess it's the extreme. It's extreme. You know, the extreme that it went to, like scared me, I think. I know. I'm very boring. Like I never would, you know, I smoked pop, but that's it. I never did anything else because I thought

I was, you know, going to jump out a window and hallucinate and kill someone. I just, I'm such a, like everyone says, oh, you're so tough. You're, you know, there's not a lot of Rosie O'Donnell and Rosie O'Donnell. Because I'm not. I'm a softy. I'm like a mush, but I have this exterior from New York, tough. I'll tell you off. I'll tell you what's wrong.

But I'm not like that. So when I read this book, I thought, this is my Elizabeth Gilbert. What the hell happened to her? You know, like it scared the shit out of me, you know? Yeah. A lot has happened to her. That's what's so cool. A lot has happened to her. And she's not preserving an image of herself. She's just sharing what's happened to her, which is wild. She is brave to admit it all. I agree. And, you know, people like me got scared about it just so you know. But it's understandable to be scared. You know, we like to have our things as we understood

them. And it's interesting kind of full circle for this. It's like the abandonment thing that I thought I knew something. I thought I knew what my life would be. I thought I knew what my country would be. I thought I knew. And then this change and it's fear and it's really a human thing to want things to be the way you thought they were. So true. It's so true.

And growth only comes from when you press the boundaries, you know. Not that I would ever be able to press those kinds of boundaries because I wouldn't, you know, because I'm a nerd. seriously I like to stay home and do Lego and watercolors and Sharpies I mean so does Liz Liz spends hours a day collaging doing what you do she sits at my table she brings all of her little accoutrements and if we don't have enough we have to go to Michaels and buy some more little stickers and then hours and hours collaging yeah I got to say we got to I have to meet her one day because I think we would have a lot to talk about if I could get over being mildly afraid of you know what I'm saying I think she'd like that sure

rosy you are so special we are always have been on team Rosie forever and will remain on team rosy forever if you make the old lesbians documentary please call us we want to be a part of it we want to help totally let's do that ladies I want to do it I'm so interested I'm so wanting to tell their stories I'm so wanting to tell our stories You know, especially nowadays in this political climate, I want, you know, gay women to know where we're from and what we had to fight to get to where we are and how we need to hold on to our dignity amongst this horrific onslaught against our community. Amen.

Love to your family, Rosie, please stay in touch with us. And to you three. Thank you so much. And Abby, I'll never forget when you were playing. I watched you all the time, and I was like, look at that one. And I don't know if you know, but when everything happened with the DUI, I wrote you. Did you ever get that email? No.

You wrote to her? I wrote you an email at that time. What did you say? I said that, you know, you're a champion, and you can get through this, too, like you have everything else, and there are people waiting for you. Rosie, I'm going to look and see how that. I don't know how I didn't get that. Yeah, it was way, way back when, but I definitely did. I'm almost 10 years sober from that day.

Good for you. It was really the best thing that ever happened. And you know, it's interesting because that's right when my daughter was in so much trouble as she still is suffering my Chelsea, but was 10 years ago when she ran away. And it was the same time as that. And I remember people struggling with substance abuse and thinking they all need to hear that you haven't abandoned them. you know. So many people show up when things are good. When I'm down, whether something's going on

on the interwebs or I'm being, whatever's happening, I never forget the people who reach out, Ben. You're one of those. Thank you. I try my best. All right, ladies, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Pod Squad, we love you. Rosie, we love you. We are in this together. We can do hard things and we'll see you here next time. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram and at We Can Do Hard Things show on TikTok.