I was torn about writing this piece, not wanting to give this vile person any more than the attention the legacy media has given her. However, I can't let the flaming hypocrisy of her actions occur in silence.
So, I'm opening my big mouth!
Comedian (using the term lightly) and former talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell left America on January 15, 2025, five days before President Donald Trump returned to office.
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She took her youngest child to Ireland, called the move the safest for her family, and said she would consider coming home when America again had equal rights. From People:
The View alum then recalls a recent shopping excursion she took in Dublin, where she's currently living, which prompts her to open up about how the change in her environment has led her to notice a difference in her health.
“I feel healthier, I’m sleeping better without the stress and anxiety over what was happening politically in the country,” she says, referring to the U.S.
She then references her “feud” with President Donald Trump and how the changes he’s made in the country since he was inaugurated on Jan. 20 are a big reason why she left.
“I knew that it would really tax me emotionally to have to do that,” she says of living in the U.S. while President Trump is in office. “So I’m very happy that we made the decision that we made.”
She also shares how she’s grateful to have two cousins in Northern Ireland who have helped her adjust. In a previous TikTok, she revealed she was "in the process" of getting Irish citizenship as her grandparents are from Ireland.
Later, after selling all her U.S. real estate, she put the timetable more bluntly: "When he's done, I will come back."
Trump isn't done, but Rosie is back anyway, at least for a summer of American stages, television cameras, and street recognition. Her one-woman show, "Common Knowledge," opened July 22 at New York's Daryl Roth Theatre for a 12-performance run. From Bronx News:
The Long Island native, who spent many years in the Hudson Valley community of Nyack, is bringing her life experiences to the stage with her new one-woman show, "Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge."
The limited engagement marks O’Donnell’s return to New York theater following sold-out performances in Dublin and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The show blends her trademark humor with heartfelt reflections on the moments that shaped her life—from growing up on Long Island and losing her mother at a young age, to motherhood, family and finding a new chapter away from home.
“I’m thrilled to be performing in my hometown. There’s no place like New York,” O’Donnell said.
On Aug. 17, she begins a week as guest host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
While walking around New York, she said it felt funny to be "re-famous" at 64.
The temptation is to ask whether money forced the return; no public evidence supports it. She performed the show in Dublin and Edinburgh before bringing it to New York, and her finances are private, of course.
However, the documented facts point one way: America remains where her fame has the deepest roots, where the cameras are bigger, and where an anti-Trump routine has a ready-made audience.
O'Donnell hasn't softened while enjoying the country she declared unsafe. Recently, she said Trump is falling asleep, "very physically ill," and doesn't look "long for this earth." She also said he shouldn't control the nuclear codes.
For Kimmel's show, she wanted to sing a parody about the president's anatomy, but the network rejected the number. Her planned contribution to national healing was apparently a genital joke set to a familiar tune.
She then lamented, “I wanted to do that on Kimmel. But they just told me I can't. That they couldn't get permission for the parody because it's political content. And I was like, ‘Well, that is absurd to me,’ because we used to do parodies every day on my show.
From Mike Lindell to JD Vance to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kimmel has parodies and satires on his show all the time. On rarer occasions, Josh Meyers will even stop by to impersonate Gavin Newsom.
As it was, O’Donnell obliged Swisher’s desire to provide a snippet of what could have been. O’Donnell sang, “His approval rate is 30. His diaper's always dirty, I think the guy's insane. He ain't no stable genius. Got a teeny tiny penis and he doesn't have a brain.”
Her confidence also ran ahead of her invitation. O'Donnell said she would appear during The View's 30th season and suggested former hosts were being brought back. Her representative soon clarified there had been no formal invitation; a possible conversation became a booked appearance by the time she told the story.
Begrudging credit where it's due: plenty of famous people promise to flee after an election, then grow quiet and hope everybody forgets. O'Donnell packed up, moved her child, pursued Irish citizenship, and sold her American homes. She followed through farther than most performers who use emigration as an applause line.
What she couldn't leave behind was American attention. Ireland may offer her peace and distance from Trump. It can't reproduce the audience that made her wealthy and famous.
Her return lets her sell tickets, host national television, revisit old feuds, and hear strangers call her name in New York.
She also seems to believe her absence carried political force. In July, O'Donnell claimed Trump's support had "diminished significantly since I left."
The line reveals the size of her bubble: tens of millions cast ballots, political coalitions rise or fall for many reasons, and a so-called comedian's address in Dublin isn't one of them.
Rosie O'Donnell sold the homes, crossed the Atlantic, and framed her departure as a moral verdict on America. Eighteen months later, America is still her marketplace, her stage, and her source of relevance. She can live in Ireland and condemn the country from afar.
And, when the applause beckons, she knows exactly where to find it.
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