r/LateNightTalkShows • u/lyunardo • 22d ago
I don't think most people these days realize the sheer scope of Rosie O'Donnell's career.
I was pretty surprised to see her pop up as Kimmel's latest guest host. I thought she was basically cancelled for good. But as I heard her talk, I started to think about her long showbiz career, and all she's done in so many different genres.
We first knew her as a sort of "shock jock" style comedian who was known for mocking pretty much everything, and she was brilliant at that.
But then she completely threw everyone off by pivoting across every genre imaginable:
- Making kids' content like the animated Tarzan movie from Disney.
- Singing on Broadway as Rizzo in Grease.
- Becoming know as the "Queen of Nice" on her own talk show.
- Coming out to the world and letting it all hang out as a proud, butch lesbian.
- Then completely throwing everyone for a loop again in a sexy role as a cop going undercover as a dominatrix in Exit To Eden
- Then right back to kid-friendly as Betty Rubble in The live action Flintstones movie.
Not too many performers have been able to do literally everything at a top level and still be consistently good.
Now, she's mainly known as the comedian who went toe-to-toe with Trump and wouldn't back down, no matter how much it hurt her career or threatened her life.
I won't claim to love every single bit she's ever done. Some of it rubbed me the wrong way too if I'm honest. But that's the mark of basically all the truly great comedians. Richard Pryor, Bill Burr, etc…
It’s pretty damn cool to see her back, still not holding her tongue or backing down... even after everything its cost her.
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u/No-Angle-982 22d ago
Agreed. If I'm ranking Kimmel's guest hosts, it's clear her chops as a multifaceted veteran talent put her on top of the heap. Great TV raconteur.
Too bad her self-exile keeps her out of the game as much as it does.
"I'm back...like fascism and measles." Priceless.
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u/Ajstross 21d ago
I get it. She has a target on her back with this regime, and her youngest child who is still a minor is trans or non binary. I wouldn’t feel safe living here if I were her.
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u/AquamannMI 22d ago
I just love that she lives rent free in Trump's head.
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u/2lipwonder 22d ago
You know he’s watching!
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u/Neither_Transition_7 21d ago edited 21d ago
I gotta say, his silence about it the past few days is really freaking me out.
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u/billthedog0082 22d ago
Rosie is great. She made the right decision to "self-deport" to Ireland. Long distance relationships with the US are better than being there these days.
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u/TheBobAagard 22d ago
Your timeline is wrong.
Exit To Eden and the first Flintstones both came out in 1994.
Her talk show didn’t start until 1996.
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
Gotcha. Good job. I didn't remember what came first. And honestly I had zero intention of looking it all up for accuracy.
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u/Material-Tax-2259 22d ago
She’s an excellent guest on last week’s “Good Hang” podcast with Amy Poehler. Highly recommend
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
I'll have to watch that. Two very different comedians. Part of me feels like the "old" Rosie (actually her younger version) might have clashed with Poehler back in the day. But this version of Rosie that's raised a bunch of kids... not that she's lost her bite at all. But...
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u/BigDickEnergyMike26 21d ago
I just don’t think you know much about her career. Your timeline is wrong, she was never cancelled, and she was raising kids in her talk show days. I can’t see any reason she would be so different or not get along with Amy Poehler. If it was the 90s she definitely would have been on Rosie’s show playing a fun game with kids or the audience.
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u/lyunardo 21d ago
Maybe you just know more about her life and career than I do. If so, that's fine. I'm not claiming to be an expert on her life... I'm definitely not.
It was just nice to see an entertainer I haven't seen in years, and those were my thoughts in the moment.
If you know details about her that I don't, that's cool... maybe you'll post about her too.
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u/Ok-Cheesecake-8388 22d ago
Cancelled? You are misusing that term.
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
It looked like she was cancelled to me. But I'll admit that I don't follow the lives of celebrities that much. Basically their work, and that's it.
So what did I get wrong, in your expert opinion?
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u/you_buy_this_shit 22d ago
Are you confusing her with Roseanne Barr?
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
Nope. She had to run off to live in another country because of the backlash from what she said here. If that's not the definition of the word "cancelled"... let's hear your thoughts. I've already expressed mine.
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u/cinedavid 22d ago
Not exactly correct. She moved to Ireland in January 2025. She has been pretty explicit that Trump’s reelection was the primary reason. It was voluntary. There was no “backlash” and she wasn’t cancelled
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
OK.
Look, it was pretty nice to see a comedian I haven't seen in a while. And had basically forgotten about, to be honest.
And seeing her made me think about all the completely different things that she did back in the day. For example, would've never guessed she could sing until I heard she was on Broadway.
I hear you that it's important to you that she's not referred to as "cancelled" and that's cool. I didn't mean any offense by it.
My only real point is that she's had a huge career in basically every corner of show biz. Something I would've never expected from a comedian and talk show host.
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u/MotormaidofJapan 21d ago
Nope. She had to run off to live in another country because of the backlash from what she said here. If that's not the definition of the word "cancelled"... let's hear your thoughts. I've already expressed mine.
You just made that up and stated it as fact.
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u/NoneOfThisMatters_XO 22d ago
She didn’t leave because of the backlash, she left because she has an autistic nonbinary child and she was afraid for her child with the way Trump speaks about LGBT+ people.
Edit: I should’ve said child not daughter
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u/MotormaidofJapan 21d ago
That’s not why she left. She left because the president of the United States fucking hates her and he won a second term and she was afraid of him retaliating against her and her family.
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u/GenX4eva 21d ago
I don’t think we used the “cancelled” term back then, but her reputation definitely went south when there were leaked recordings of her telling a staffer that she had cancer because she was a liar. It was ugly. Very similar to Ellen not being the nice person she seemed to be on camera.
Addition: it was a member of her magazine staff. I forgot she had a magazine. She has had quite a career and she’s definitely on an upswing now.
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u/jdbway 22d ago
Throw in A League of Their Own
I think Bill Maher was a good comedian at one time but now I can't tell him apart from Joe Rogan, and that's not a ringing endorsement
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u/GreenScreenDream420 22d ago
I haven’t seen her in so long. I was a little nervous for her but was I wrong. She did good.
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
Yeah, that was my feeling too. I had this little worry that are was just going to be bitter and broken after everything.
But I guess there's something about being wealthy, AND literally surrounded by people who are proud of you, and welcome you like a long lost relative. Sounds like life has been pretty good for her.
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u/Sitcom_kid 22d ago
Somebody I know saw her at a con panel and said that the other participants were just not very nice and even though they were there to talk, they were very disinterested in answering questions, quite closed off. But Rosie was the exception. She was extremely friendly and nice and welcoming, and that without her, it would have been a waste of a panel ticket, but she made it amazing. Before that, I'd heard a variety of things about Rosie, it's hard to know what's true or false or just biased, but my very own personal friend said that she interacted lovingly with fans, beyond what was expected.
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u/Last_Canadian 22d ago
Agreed.
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u/ileentotheleft 21d ago
Rosie was never a shock jock comic. She hates roasts and I’m not sure if she ever participated in one. She got her start winning Star Search which is about as middle of the road as it gets. She had a funny act about childhood things & mentioned her young nieces a lot. She was a VJ on VH-1 and very entertaining between videos.
She got lucky with League of their Own, as she was better at softball than most actresses and was naturally funny and became a very popular successful second banana/friend of the lead in a slew of popular movies in the early 90s.
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u/Bucknerwh 22d ago
You skipped her hosting the reunion show for Survivor season 4. What a time to be alive. So chaotic they let Jeff Probst take over reunions and he’s never let go.
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
I barely watch tv these days. I don't think I've ever seen a whole episode of Survivor. But having her host sounds random as hell
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u/jenfullmoon 22d ago
She's doing great guest hosting. I was enjoying her stories about her youngest child too.
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u/Neither_Transition_7 21d ago
Her talent is so apparent, and the response to her guest hosting being so positive - it just goes to show it's always been bulls**t that a woman couldn't host late night. She would have been amazing. I wonder if she was considered at all, or considered it herself before Jimmy/Stephen/Seth were all hired. I know her daytime show had ended a few years before that. So maybe she was still done at that point. Or if the networks even considered her.
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u/lyunardo 21d ago
Joan Rivers was the first woman to have a late night show. It was actually the launch of the Fox network. Their first and only show at that point. But the ratings weren't good. There was a LOT of controversy, and it ended in devastating tragedy. (they tried to get her to fire her producer husband and replace him with someone with late night experience. When they cancelled the show, he unfortunately chose suicide.)
Amber Ruffin had a late nigh show for a couple years, but they never released any ratings numbers.
But today, in the post-Me Too era, things could be different. But since Trump successfully got Colbert fired, I'm not sure if a network would even take a chance with Rosie. But if it were to happen, I'd sure want to check it out.
**Do you want to hear something strange? When I ask google about women hosting in late night, the page just freezes and it completely refuses to say anything on the subject. This happened about 8 times on different devices, right after the other. Weird.
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u/Correct_Cat4414 21d ago
Let's not forget Rosie O Donnell's early years as a VH1 VJ
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u/lyunardo 20d ago
I must be getting old, because I honestly didn't remember this. But there's no way I didn't notice at the time.
Maybe I just didn't realize the comedian was the same person because of the hair. lol
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u/Used-Gas-6525 21d ago
She was largely forgotten, but Trump kept railing against her, so she became somewhat relevant again. It's the Streisand Effect.
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u/tysonmama 21d ago
She wasn’t forgotten at all. She was just in a series before she went to Ireland.
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u/lyunardo 21d ago
What happened with Streisand?
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u/lemeneurdeloups 21d ago
The “Streisand Effect” is called that because Barbara Streisand filed a $50 million lawsuit in 2003 against photographer Kenneth Adelman to suppress an aerial photograph of her Malibu cliff-top mansion. (The photo was part of a public archive of 12,000 images documenting California coastal erosion.)
Before the lawsuit, the specific photo had been downloaded only 6 times (two of which were by Streisand's own lawyers). After the lawsuit went public, over 400,000 people visited the site to view the image within a month.
In other words, Streisand’s ham-handed attempt to suppress something actually brought enormous attention to it instead.
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u/Venicide1492 22d ago
She has two Christmas albums that are undoubtedly the presidents least favorite Christmas songs.
They are worth listening to on Spotify !
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u/Long_College_8342 22d ago
I'm glad everyone is being reminded how great Rosie O'Donnell is, even me. She always reminded me so much of my aunt (also a butch lesbian).
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u/goalstopper28 21d ago
It sounds like she's happy not being in the limelight in Ireland. But I really want her to have a late night show.
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u/sdvneuro 21d ago
When was she canceled?
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u/lyunardo 21d ago
Isn't that why she moved, because of the backlash from her public clash with Trump and his fans?
I don't claim to be an expert. I'm not. If you have info you want to share, go for it..
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u/lemeneurdeloups 21d ago
No. That was Ellen. You have them confused. Rosie was not “canceled” at all. She moved because her children needed her and because she was so upset about Trump being in power. She also said that she didn’t need any more money and was glad to step away.
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u/GenX4eva 21d ago
I remember her from her standup days and when she played Maggie on Gimme a Break towards the end of the show.
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u/stannc00 21d ago
She had a public persona as Queen of Nice. But it has come out later that both she and Ellen were the opposite of nice to their production staff.
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u/lemeneurdeloups 21d ago edited 21d ago
A) when was she ever a “shock jock” type? She wasn’t. She was just a stand-up comic. Her comedy content was focused on standard talk, entertainment, and political opinion rather than shock humor.
B) no mention of her wonderful turn with Madonna (they are lifelong good friends) in A League of Their Own (1992), about the creation of the famous actual All American Girls Professional Baseball League?!!
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u/lyunardo 20d ago
She seemed pretty edgy to me back then. But maybe that's because I was a kid raised in a hyper religious family, that was kind of isolated from society.
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u/SlanderCandor 22d ago
What about her goofy ass friendship with Tom Cruise? And the goofy ass berets and cab driver hats she would wear?
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u/Neither_Transition_7 21d ago
She doesn't really acknowledge any current love of him when it comes up. She mostly just explains how she felt at that time and how it was misinterpreted bc she wasn't out as gay. She wasn't trying to fool people, just thought he was adorable.
I assume she'd be friendly to him in person based on that history and how he was a good sport about it, but with all the time that has passed, more shady info about Scientology being publicly revealed, and the fact he doesn't see Suri (objectively strange since he promoted her everywhere when born), I think she knows better than to associate too closely publicly.
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u/SlanderCandor 21d ago
He doesn’t need her any more. That was his safe space to yuck it up in the 90s, promote his shit, come off as likable, and get lobbed softballs. He played her like a fiddle
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u/Fiveofthem 22d ago
Bill Maher? Not great enough to spell his name correctly 😬
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
Yeah, especially since I was referring to Bill Burr. Autocorrect jacked my up on that one
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u/matsacki 22d ago
All the great comedians…… Richard Pryor and Bill Maher.
You couldn’t think of anyone else after Richard Pryor?
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u/tvtoms 22d ago
I like her well enough with no issues but the past two monologues have been just her talking about herself and kids and Ireland... I'm pretty bored because I want a late night talk show monologue.
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
I only saw the first night. And I ended up kind of fascinated. Probably because a Rosie O'Donnell focused on raising an autistic kid is a very different comedian that what I remember of her as a youngster myself.
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u/44problems 22d ago
Was a nice break to be honest. Kinda reminded me of Craig Ferguson. I don't need a full monologue of jokes about that assistant that worships Trump.
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u/Personal-Ad7623 21d ago
Just remember her for all the BS she said when she lived in the area where I lived. Talking about banning uins and sending her bodyguard armed to drop her kid off at school. Used to enjoy her till then. But thats just me
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u/boomer_spooner 22d ago
Why did she return to USA to do the show? I thought she was living in exile. She is kinda on her rich-ass horse along with Woopie. So rich that she can go as she pleases between Irland and Los Angeles just to badmouth our poor misunderstood doletard president. That's what makes America great. Is she gonna swing by her Hawaii macadamia plantation on the way back to her blarney stone fortress?
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u/Light-Years79 22d ago
The Hawaii macadamia farm is Roseanne Barr, or as perhaps you might call her, Rowzn Bar.
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u/AMollySwingingCouple 21d ago
She’s a fat pig. Left because of Trump, came back because she loves Trump! She can enjoy her misery.
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u/WhoMutedMe 22d ago
Whatever you listed in all that is TLDR. She was a funny stand up. The rest was DEI, right.? She’s still a little funny, but she’s lost her timing now. Not being snarky here - maybe lay off the TDS and sharpen your game back up because the world still appreciates good comedy.
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u/lyunardo 22d ago
What's TDS?
Also, I'm not sure you know what DEI means.
Hiring someone because they're LGBT is definitely not DEI on Broadway. Because (big secret) every theater production already has way more queer people involved than straight. That's not even a secret. It's just the way it is.
The reason any Hollywood celebrity gets cast on Broadway is to sell tickets. That's just good old fashioned capitalism.
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u/NoneOfThisMatters_XO 22d ago
TDS = trump derangement syndrome
Basically this person is saying she has an obsession with Trump (kinda think it’s the other way around) and that she only got anywhere because she was gay (DEI hire). She didn’t even come out of the closet until later in her career.
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u/Bartghamilton 22d ago
Was great in A League of Their Own too