“Hey, can’t you see?
I’m terrific at everything!
No star shines so bright as me—Rosie!
Believe me!”
— “Really Rosie,” Carole King
I feel sorry for anyone who wasn’t around in the ’90s to witness the pure joy that was The Rosie O’Donnell Show.
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The daytime talk show premiered in 1996 and ran until 2002, a time long before social media, and was an instant smash. Rosie’s unabashed fandom for her guests was a breath of fresh air, and her true joy in giving away free stuff to her audience instantly earned her the title “The Queen of Nice.” Her desk was covered with toys, she often shot Koosh balls into the audience, and her favorite nickname for everyone she loved was, and still is, “Cutie Patootie.”
Fully filterless, she shared everything from her life in her pre-interview chats with bandleader John McD (shout out to the DLT’s!), from which Broadway show she’d just seen, to her obsessions with Barbra Streisand, Elton John, and Tom Cruise, to documenting the growth, and eventually beading, of a very long chin hair.
Her “Queen of Nice” moniker began to fade towards the end of her show’s run, as she bravely came out as a lesbian and started telling more truths about the people she knew, stories that weren’t as exuberant and fun as in the earlier years of the show. But people should’ve had an inkling of who Rosie really was in May of 1999, barely a month after the tragic Columbine school shooting, when she challenged gun-loving Tom Selleck on his NRA membership instead of letting him promote his new project.
Four years after her show went off the air, Rosie joined the panel on The View, and that’s when her legendary 20-year feud with Donald Trump first began.
There are no lies detected anywhere in this 2006 clip, including her spot-on impression of Trump.
Some of you may not be old enough to remember, but 20 years ago, Trump was rightfully the butt of everyone’s jokes. His persona at the time was of a louche, chauvinistic playboy who was encouraged to say the grossest possible things about women. Rosie nailed everything that made Trump anathema to decent people, and he couldn’t handle the truth because he’s always been a thin-skinned, short-fingered vulgarian.
Trump can’t stand it any when women reject him or call him out on his behavior, even when it’s a woman he doesn’t find attractive. But his vulgar, body-shaming attacks on Rosie went far beyond anything she’s ever said about him, and even when she wasn’t talking about him, he’d find ways to assail her in the press. And once he had a Twitter account, he got even worse, with increased juvenile name-calling (“a nasty, disgusting pig” was a favorite. Projection language much, Donny?) along with shaming her for her sexuality.
Confident men let things roll off of them. Trump just overcompensates, and it shows in everything he says and does.
Trump’s odd obsession with Rosie goes beyond being reactive, and he would often go after her unprovoked at the weirdest of times. People forget that he brought her up during a presidential debate in September 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and bragged about bullying her: “Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her and I think everyone would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.”
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When Rosie announced last year that she was moving to Ireland with her youngest child, Trump seemed to take it personally.
Yeah, that whole “every accusation is a confession” thing is glaringly obvious, because there’s never been a threat to humanity quite like Donald Trump. Aside from not having the power to revoke her citizenship, he posted this because he never emotionally matured beyond fourth grade.
That’s your guy, MAGA. He’s all yours.
Thankfully, Rosie was coaxed back to America, and to the talk show format she revolutionized, this past week when she guest-hosted on Jimmy Kimmel Live. She kicked off the week with oblique references to Trump, knowing he’d be watching. But more importantly, she brought back warmth and joy at a time when there’s very little of either going around.
GenX was in full nostalgia mode all week long, with demands all over social for Rosie to come back to our airwaves, perhaps on an endless loop as the ultimate comfort zone during our current garbage fire.
All the classic Rosie show vibes were there, from the toys on the desk to the fun giveaways to the exuberance she showed for every single guest. I smiled for the entire segment she did with Hannah Waddingham, fangirling over how they were fangirling over each other.
Rosie shared delightful stories about her new life in Ireland with her non-binary, autistic teenager, Clay, and used the moment to talk about how she’s still working on using their proper pronouns.
She could’ve talked about anything, but because she’s Rosie, she told the world about hitting on her pharmacist, Joan, who turned out to be married…to a man. Rosie later encountered the couple in the local pub, and when Joan introduced Rosie to her husband, he said, “She’s not a lesbian, Rosie, she’s just got short hair.”
Does anyone remember laughter? We had a full week of it, even as she kept poking at her not-very-presidential nemesis.
Rosie wrapped up her all-too-brief residency with an old Irish folk song, updated and dedicated to the empty head in which she lives rent-free.
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“We know you’ll never be Obama. Resign and make this country great again.”
We are all Shawn Hatosy right now, Rosie.
REALLY.
