Rosie O’Donnell Admits Ellen DeGeneres Hurt Her Baby Feelings and ‘Never Got Over It’

Former View and talk show host Rosie O’Donnell revealed she never appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show because of hurt feelings that spanned for years.

O’Donnell’s groundbreaking daytime talk show The Rosie O’Donnell Show likely helped to pave the way for Ellen DeGeneres on daytime television, said she was shocked when she watched DeGeneres say they weren’t friends. At the time O’Donnell’s long-running talk show had come to an end, so the sting of hearing those words hurt. Of course now, she can joke about it.

Rosie O’Donnell was shocked when Ellen DeGeneres said they weren’t friends

O’Donnell recalled the instance during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. Host Andy Cohen asked O’Donnell why she never appeared on DeGeneres’s show and even he looked shocked when she told him why.

“We had a little bit of a weird thing,” O’Donnell explained. ” “After my show went off the air, and her’s was coming on the air, Larry King was on with Ellen and he said, ‘Whatever happened to Rosie O’Donnell? Her show went down the tubes. She came out as a lesbian and disappeared.’ And Ellen said, and I’m quoting, ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.'” Ouch.

Ellen DeGeneres hurt Rosie’s feelings ‘like a baby’

O’Donnell recalled doing a double take when she heard DeGeneres say they weren’t friends. “And I was in bed with [former wife] Kelli and I went, ‘Did I just hear that or was that, like, a hallucination auditory voice?’ I’m like, no, and that’s what happened, and it hurt my feelings like a baby and I never really got over it.”

Still looking shocked Cohen replied,” Yeah, and they never asked you to come on!”

But O’Donnell clarified, sharing that The Ellen DeGeneres Show producers “Asked me toward the end. I was going to go on for (her Showtime series) SMILF,” she said. “But I wanted to bring someone with me because I thought it might be a little less awkward. And they didn’t wanna do that.”

O’Donnell added, “I wish her all good things in her life and that she should be well. So there you go. But I never did it. I never did it.” 

Rosie shares why she thinks Ellen’s show ended

In an earlier interview, O’Donnell speculated what actually ended DeGeneres’s show. “I don’t think it was the ‘be kind’ thing that got her,” O’Donnell said on SiriusXM (via Entertainment Weekly). “I think that’s an oversimplification. But it was a lot of things, and it was complicated, and I’m glad that she’s, you know, going to be finished and she can get some time to herself.”

O’Donnell also didn’t think DeGeneres’s tarnished “nice” personality had much to do with the show ending. “Not in the way that Ellen’s talking about, I think,” she observed. “But you know, I said the day it came out, ‘Look at this, the Queen of Nice. And [in] a couple of years, it’s going to be the Queen of Lice, the Queen of Fried Rice, you know, the Queen of We Don’t Like Her Anymore.'”

Adding, “I have an understanding of the cycle of show business, and kind of what happens in people’s careers, and when enough is enough. And oftentimes people don’t know that. I think I have a good balance of both in my life — of the importance of both. And it’s hard to maintain. It’s hard to do, especially when you’re doing a show like that.”