Rosie O’Donnell left the United States shortly after President Donald Trump was elected for a second term, but says she didn’t expect Ellen DeGeneres to similarly cite politics as her motivation to move abroad.
Speaking to US Weekly in an interview published Wednesday, O’Donnell said moving to Ireland “was something I needed to do for the safety and sanity of myself and my non-binary child.” Regarding DeGeneres, however, she admitted she was “shocked” to learn of the comedian and former talk show host’s decision to relocate to England with her wife, Portia de Rossi.
“I’ve never really known Ellen to say anything political in her life, so I was surprised to read that she left because of President Trump. Like, that shocked me, actually,” she explained. “I’ve been a political person my whole life, not better or worse, it’s just a different way to be in the world. I was very clear about the reason why I was leaving, and I don’t think it came as a surprise to anyone.”
She added, “We’re not really in each other’s worlds, and it’s been kind of awkward but you know what? I wish her the best. I wish that she has peace and love in her life and that she is OK.”
DeGeneres and de Rossi reportedly put their Montecito, California, home up for sale in late November, just weeks after Trump swept to victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris. Since then, the couple settled in the Cotswolds, a rural region in England about 100 miles west of London.
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The move also came about two months after DeGeneres unveiled “Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval,” billed as her final project as an entertainer, on Netflix. In the special, she joked about about having been “kicked out of show business” for being “mean,” alluding to the explosive allegations of workplace misconduct that surfaced near five years ago and left an indelible mark on her reputation.
In 2004, DeGeneres told Larry King that she and O’Donnell were “not really friends.” In the years since then, O’Donnell has hinted at a frosty relationship between the two women, though they’d “supported each other” at first.
“It became a strange, ‘There can’t be two lesbians in this town’ kind of a thing,” she told the Hollywood Reporter in 2023. “Then we each had success and went separate ways.”
In her US Weekly chat, however, O’Donnell clarified that she had no “malice” toward DeGeneres, noting, “I don’t want to fight against another gay woman.”
“It’s not like we’re tenaciously opposed to each other. We’re just very different people,” she said. “We have had some stuff in the past that we never resolved. And not in any way as, as partners or lovers or anything like that, just as friends and comedians, but I wish her the best. I seriously do.”
“I think that there’s enough room in the world for all of the gay comedians, and we all need to stick together because gay people are the next group to be threatened,” she continued. “And the way they attack trans people is absolutely terrifying. If people don’t understand that they’re a vital part of the LBGTQIA+ community, that’s tragic because we protect our own, especially the most vulnerable.”
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