This strained relationship is no laughing matter.
Rosie O’Donnell, 63, recently reflected on the fallout that happened between her and Ellen DeGeneres, 67, over twenty years ago.
While on Kate Langbroek’s “No Filter” podcast on Monday, the host asked the comic about the time her former friend revealed her sexuality on national television.
In 1997, DeGeneres, along with her character, came out on an episode of her sitcom “Ellen.”
O’Donnell explained that watching that episode as someone who was still in the closet felt “very threatening.”
At the time, the actress was hosting her daytime talk show, “The Rosie O’Donnell Show.”
“She came on my show, and I felt strongly that I didn’t want to leave her out there alone,” O’Donnell detailed. “That I could not (as a) gay person act as though I was not the same as her.”
Before they went on-air the two spoke about their game plan. DeGeneres said she wanted to joke that her “Ellen” character was going to “become Lebanese.”
O’Donnell said she was going to go along with it.
During the interview, after DeGeneres made the joke, O’Donnell replied that she could also be “Lebanese” because she was a fan of American disc jockey Casey Kasem.
“Everyone who was gay at home got it,” O’Donnell continued. “Because I wouldn’t leave her out there alone. I couldn’t do it. So we had this, you know, really sort of decoded, coded, interaction that anyone who was gay knew. But, you know, the public didn’t really pick up on it.”
“And nobody would ask,” she added. “I remember it felt very threatening. I was on this very successful show. I was winning all the Emmy awards.”
“It just felt like, ‘Oh, this could really threaten me.’ But still, my internal clock wouldn’t allow me to distance myself from her,” stated the star. “I had to stand by her and hold her hand, and that’s what I chose to do. Then, you know, it’s funny, because she never really, I didn’t think, appreciated that moment.”
After that moment, their friendship began to fracture.
O’Donnell recalled being in bed with her then-wife Kelli Carpenter while they watched DeGeneres on “Larry King Live.”
King, who died in 2021, asked DeGeneres about “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” ending after six seasons.
The show aired its final episode in 2002. Despite being offered more money to return, O’Donnell was 40 and wanted to spend time with her kids.
“He asked her, ‘Whatever happened to Rosie O’Donnell? Her show went down the tubes,’” she mimicked. “And Ellen said, ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.’”
“That was like one of the most painful things that ever happened to me in show business in my life,” O’Donnell admitted.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she went on. “I have photos of her holding my newborn babies. I knew her for 30 years. It was so upsetting to me that I had t-shirts made [that said] ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends’ and I gave them out to my staff.”
“It was very painful and, you know, we’ve never sort of gotten over it,” O’Donnell noted.
After Langbroek asked if DeGeneres ever reached out to explain herself, O’Donnell simply replied, “No.”
“We’re not similar,” she pressed. “I can say that for sure. We’re not emotionally similar.”
The Post reached out to a rep for DeGeneres for comment.
O’Donnell also noted that after “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” debuted in 2003, she was never asked on until many seasons later.
The series included the same production team from “The Rosie O’Donnell Show.”
Despite not blaming DeGeneres for seizing the moment, O’Donnell did think her ex-pal could have handled things differently.
“I did think that she was all of a sudden in the position I was in, where she was starting a show and wanted it to be successful and get the money and the accolades that came with it,” O’Donnell explained. “And instead of deciding to stand next to me and hold my hand, which is what I did to her, she did the opposite. I couldn’t believe it.”
O’Donnell has previously spoken about the demise of her friendship with DeGeneres.
While on “Watch What Happens Live” in 2023, she recounted the Larry King story, adding, “I turned to Kelli and went, ‘Did I just hear that or was that a hallucination?’ And that’s what happened and it hurt my feelings like a baby and I never really got over it.”
“I wish her all good things in her life and that she should be well.”
“The Ellen DeGeneres Show” ran for 19 seasons from 2003 to 2022. Its end came on the heels of 2020 allegations of a toxic work environment.
DeGeneres addressed the accusations during the opening monologue on the first episode of her 18th season. She issued an on-air apology and called herself “a work in progress” before adding she is “especially working on the impatience thing.”
DeGeneres finished her last stand-up tour in 2024 and has since retired. In November, she and her wife, Portia de Rossi, relocated to the UK after Donald Trump’s presidential win.
When asked about the allegations against DeGeneres, O’Donnell said on Busy Philipps’ podcast at the time, “You can’t fake your essence.”
“That’s why I have compassion for Ellen, right? I have compassion, even though, you know, I hear the stories and I understand. I think she has some social awkwardness.”
O’Donnell, meanwhile, also relocated to Ireland with her child, Clay, following the election.
“I know myself enough to know that this was something I needed to do for the safety and sanity of myself and my non-binary child,” O’Donnell told Us Weekly in April.
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