Rosie O’Donnell Still Feels Abandoned By Her Ex-Friend Ellen DeGeneres

Twenty-one years ago, comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres went on TV and claimed that she didn’t know Rosie O’Donnell despite their decades of friendship. Today, the comedians are no longer on speaking terms, but, considering how DeGeneres has been known to speak to those close to her, maybe it’s for the best.

Ever since 10 former employees of The Ellen DeGeneres Show came forward with accusations of habitual workplace abuse and rampant racism at the daytime TV super-hit talk show, DeGeneres’ name has carried much less gravitas than it did during her reign as America’s favorite aunt. To the countless assistants, producers, crew members and celebrity guests whom DeGeneres had belittled, berated and bullied over her storied career, DeGeneres’ public fall from grace must have felt like karmic justice, but there’s one colleague whom DeGeneres heartlessly big-leagued that still feels the wounds today in this Ellen-less era.

O’Donnell has never been shy about addressing the fall-out between her and DeGeneres following the latter’s appearance on Larry King Live in 2004, in which DeGeneres dismissed O’Donnell and claimed that the two weren’t friends. And, earlier this week, O’Donnell spoke to the No Filter podcast about how DeGeneres’ comments continue to affect her to this day.

O’Donnell, who showed public support for DeGeneres when the latter publicly came out as gay in 1997, said of her former friend, "Instead of deciding to stand next to me and hold my hand, which is what I did to her, she did the opposite."

“That was, like, one of the most painful things that ever happened to me, in show business, in my life,” O’Donnell said of DeGeneres’ infamous comments to King back in 2004. “I couldn’t believe it,” O’Donnell said of her reaction when DeGeneres inexplicably distanced herself from O’Donnell. “I have photos of her holding my newborn babies. I knew her for 30 years.”

Stating the obvious, O’Donnell said that she has “never gotten over it” and has never received an apology from DeGeneres for such an uncalled-for public insult. But, if DeGeneres did decide to mend some fences, O’Donnell knows the best way to do it. “I would have said, ‘I’m really sorry I hurt you that much, and I don’t know why I did that. It was a mistake, and I hope you can forgive me,’” O’Donnell suggested of how DeGeneres should have handled the friendship fall-out. “That’s what I would have done. I think in her mind, she thinks I keep rehashing it for pleasure.”

But, as O’Donnell insisted, “I don’t rehash it for pleasure," explaining of her continued public comments on the feud. “I rehash it because our careers have taken sort of parallel, interwoven paths.”

Still, O’Donnell pointed out, she and DeGeneres are very different people at their cores. “My desire to create family is the biggest force in my life,” O’Donnell said of her own personality,.“I do it everywhere I go, and I don’t think that she’s similar to me in that way.”

And, as for those interwoven career paths, rumor has it that O’Donnell spent the early part of 2025 shopping a stand-up streaming special just to show up DeGeneres after the disgraced host's own revival hour was an awkward, insufferable dumpster fire. If O’Donnell does end up putting out a new special, we gotta ask: What juicy Ellen tidbits has O’Donnell been saving all these years if this is the stuff she gives up on a podcast?