Rosie O’Donnell spills major tea on her years-long feud with Trump & her falling out with Ellen

It’s no secret that Rosie O’Donnell is not afraid to spill every last drop of pippin’ hot tea.

The outspoken actress, podcaster and newly minted TikTok star has been telling it like it is since relinquishing her “Queen of Nice” moniker upon walking away from her eponymous daytime talk show in 2002.

In the last few years, like many of us, her ire has been focused on the twice indicted, twice impeached, one term ex-president.

Here’s just a sample of what she had to say about him after he was recently indicted for a second time:

@rosie TRUMP INDICTED !!!! oh happy day !!! #karma #hestheHOAX ♬ original sound – Rosie ODonnell

O’Donnell and Trump’s years-long feud began back during her days co-hosting The View, when he called her “a real loser,” “fat,” and “a woman out of control” for criticizing then-Miss USA Tara Conner.

In a new wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, O’Donnell opens about the early days of their clash, who she believes is complicit in enabling Trump’s rise to political prominence, and what lead to all her beef with Ellen DeGeneres.

Feuding with Trump

“[David] Letterman had him on and was laughing, and all the political shows had him on,” she said about Trump badmouthing her in the press back in 2006. “He was even on sports shows talking about it. And it was not just an attack on me but on all women he doesn’t deem worthy, whether they’re in his mind not pretty enough, too tough, not feminine enough, not straight enough, not beautiful enough. “

She added: “And he never turns away from any kind of public feud or spat or his opinion on women. That’s what made me stand up against him.”

O’Donnell said it was Trump’s behavior after Miss Teen USA Tara Conner was spotted kissing a girl in a club that sealed her disgusted opinion of him.

“He held a big press conference right before we went live that day to say that he was going to ‘give her another chance’ and that he ‘believes in chances,’ as if he were the pimp and she was the prostitute who had acted out,” she added. “It infuriated me in every way. I said, ‘This man’s a piece of crap. Here’s the proof.'”

the dangers of donald trump – when you grope MISS USA 2006 – Tara Conner – look at her look when Trump tries to kiss her pic.twitter.com/6mWKo3tMI7

— DrumpfDrumpf (@DrumpfDrumpf) October 30, 2016

O’Donnell believes the press has been a huge culprit in promoting Trump’s bombastic image and specifically calls out Mark Burnett, who created The Apprentice, for aiding his problematic rise to prominence under false pretenses.

“The mass media was complicit in the formulation of this character that we are calling Donald Trump,” the former talk show host said. “I blame Mark Burnett fully for creating a show that was fiction and selling it as fact. There was no boardroom at Trump Tower. They created a boardroom with fake flats and walls. There was no big organization of Trump running the world. He was not a billionaire.”

All the “Lebanese” drama with Ellen

O’Donnell also reflected on her complicated friendship with fellow lesbian comedian/talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, which initially started on good terms. The pair traveled in similar circles prior to garnering fame and bonded as they both juggled their burgeoning careers while not being out publicly.

“We supported each other. Which is why when she came on my show, I said, ‘Let me not have you standing there by yourself. Let’s get a joke in there,'” O’Donnell told THR. “And we sat down and came up with that, ‘Oh my God, I love Casey Kasem. Maybe I’m Lebanese.’ It became a big thing.”

Watch the classic “Lebanese” clip from 1996 below:

Stolen from the Instagram account of godimsuchadyke –
The Rosie O'Donnell Show, 1996 where Ellen & Rosie come out as "Lebanese"#EllenDeGeneres #RosieOdonnell #Lesbian #lesbianculture pic.twitter.com/pvD0zPIrqZ

— LesbianStyle (@RadclyffsHall) March 20, 2018

Unfortunately, after making a big splash by coming out in Time magazine in 1997, DeGeneres soon hurt O’Donnell’s feeling by pulling a Mariah-style “I don’t know her.”

“But we’ve had our weirdness in our relationship. I don’t know if it’s jealousy, competition or the fact that she said a mean thing about me once that really hurt my feelings,” O’Donnell recalled of a comment DeGeneres’ made on Larry King Live.

“Larry King said, ‘Whatever happened to Rosie O’Donnell’s show? She went down the tubes as soon as she came out.’ And the quote that Ellen said was, ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.’ I was watching TV in bed with my wife going, ‘Did she just say that?'”

But O’Donnell has the receipts.

She continued: “I have a picture of her holding [my then-infant son] Parker. I know her mother. I could identify her brother without her in the room. I knew her for so many years. It just felt like I don’t trust this person to be in my world.”

Their beef went on for years as DeGeneres initially refused to have O’Donnell on her hit talk show. And later, when producers wanted to have the former The View co-host on, O’Donnell was the one who would say no.

The pair are seemingly on better terms now as O’Donnell revealed DeGeneres recently sent her an apology after hearing her discuss the entire fracas on Andy Cohen‘s radio show. DeGeneres allegedly texted, “I’m really sorry and I don’t remember that.”

Guess that’s better than nothing.

Related:

Rosie O’Donnell just spilled a whole pot of tea about her time on ‘The View’ and… damn

“I finished the show, got my coat, walked out, and said I’m not going back, and I didn’t.”