Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
Speaker 1: with a guest to talk about the times they were
Speaker 1: knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
Speaker 1: Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
Speaker 1: are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
Speaker 1: every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
Speaker 1: answers one question, now.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 1: How did you develop your comedy? How did you develop
Speaker 1: a set?
Speaker 2: I did the open mic night and I told stories
Speaker 2: about my family because at the beginning I did Jerry
Speaker 2: Seinfeld jokes seriously like I had seen him on MERV Griffin.
Speaker 2: And I went to the comedy club and I did
Speaker 2: as many as I could, not only with his jokes
Speaker 2: that he had written, which I didn't realize you had
Speaker 2: to write your own jokes, because I thought streisand doesn't
Speaker 2: write her own songs. Why do I have to write
Speaker 2: my own jokes? So I got up on stage and
Speaker 2: I went you know sometimes your carstals, you open up
Speaker 2: the hood. What are you looking for? A big on off,
Speaker 2: switch on off. I not only took his jokes, I
Speaker 2: took his cadence. I took everything.
Speaker 1: And to ever tell him that he knows.
Speaker 2: Because the other comics came over to me and said,
Speaker 2: where'd you get those jokes, Rosie? And I said, uh,
Speaker 2: Johnny Seinman, he was on MERV Griffin yesterday. They said
Speaker 2: you can't do that. I said, I certainly can. He
Speaker 2: didn't write those jokes. They go, yes, he did. And
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm fucked if I have to write
Speaker 2: my own jokes. So the other comics said to me,
Speaker 2: try just telling stories about your family. The jokes will come.
Speaker 2: And that's what I did.
Speaker 1: My guess today is the incredible Rosie o'donnal. Rosie is
Speaker 1: an Emmy Award winning talk show host, comedian, actor, podcaster,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, a wonderful friend and mother. We met
Speaker 1: years ago, and I've loved watching her transformation from a
Speaker 1: stand up comic to a fixture in pop culture, an
Speaker 1: important and occasionally controversial social and political commentator, and an
Speaker 1: activist whose work with marginalized communities is too extensive to list.
Speaker 1: Here Rosie is honest, vulnerable, and committed to personal growth.
Speaker 1: As always. I was just blown away by her candor
Speaker 1: and her willingness to share so much of herself with
Speaker 1: all of us. So here is Rosie O'Donnell, Rosie O'donnald,
Speaker 1: Welcome to now What. I'm so excited a that you've
Speaker 1: asked me to do your podcast, and I'm very very
Speaker 1: happy about that, so thank you.
Speaker 2: It was my pleasure.
Speaker 1: We've kind of warmed up a little bit, So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining my podcast, which is called.
Speaker 2: Now What Now What? What a great title.
Speaker 1: It is a great title, much like yours. Onward. What
Speaker 1: made you decide you wanted to do a podcast?
Speaker 2: Truthfully, it was doing a series, an hour long drama
Speaker 2: series last year that took so much time and energy
Speaker 2: and ended up being sort of disappointing artistically, and you know,
Speaker 2: they fired the show runner in between, and the lead
Speaker 2: mail didn't have a great time, wasn't happy about, you know,
Speaker 2: being in it, and it just was I thought of
Speaker 2: all this time that I'm out of my house with
Speaker 2: my little ten year old daughter. It was too much time.
Speaker 2: It wasn't worth not being a round her. So I
Speaker 2: really did think after that show finished, what can I
Speaker 2: do to stay home and still be creatively inspired? And
Speaker 2: I had been asked to do a podcast years ago,
Speaker 2: and I tried, and guess what, I had no idea
Speaker 2: how to do it. I would sit there by myself
Speaker 2: and I would try to just talk, like and it
Speaker 2: was like, this is not going to work.
Speaker 1: And you didn't interview people. You weren't interviewing people. You
Speaker 1: were just talking.
Speaker 2: I was talking. Yeah, that shows you a stupid way
Speaker 2: to do a podcast. I didn't have anyone to interview.
Speaker 2: I didn't have subject matters, I didn't have experts was
Speaker 2: but I never I never aired it. I recorded them
Speaker 2: and then I listened back to them and said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't want this deal. I'm sorry, I can't do it.
Speaker 1: You call this just a start of a third and
Speaker 1: big chapter, and I just love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, third and final chapter. Truthfully, we have one to thirty,
Speaker 2: and then we got thirty to sixty, and then we
Speaker 2: got sixty on and how long you go on is
Speaker 2: anyone's guess. But this is the third and final chapter
Speaker 2: of a three chapter book. I like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm comfortable yet saying final chapter
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's going to be a few
Speaker 1: pivots in this chapter or that this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can be a lot of three many chapters, yes,
Speaker 2: many chapters. Yeah, that's true. There's so many times that
Speaker 2: I remember Nora Efron saying to me, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't start directing until I was forty eight, or you
Speaker 2: know I didn't start doing you know, Georgia O'Keeffe never
Speaker 2: painted until and she would always know people who started
Speaker 2: things later than most. And I always hear her voice
Speaker 2: in my head whenever I think, oh, I'm too old
Speaker 2: for that. No, Grandma Moses learned to paint when she
Speaker 2: was a grandma.
Speaker 1: I love that, though. That's as there is such a thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, my mom didn't want to be called grandma.
Speaker 1: Nobody want to be called grandma. And I just think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm always like, hurry up and have kids kids,
Speaker 1: You're like, Mom, that's weird.
Speaker 2: My daughter has three. I'm a grandma now three babies.
Speaker 2: She has three babies under the age of four, and
Speaker 2: she's pregnant with her fourth.
Speaker 1: Wow, one to three for now.
Speaker 2: Boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 1: Oh my godness.
Speaker 2: She's only twenty five and you know, it's uh, she's
Speaker 2: had some challenges and you know, she's had a hard
Speaker 2: hand dealt to her. I think as a kid, she
Speaker 2: was born kind of compromised in some ways, and she struggled,
Speaker 2: and we try to support her as best we can
Speaker 2: and try to, you know, not let addiction wreak havoc
Speaker 2: on the whole family.
Speaker 1: Well that's a very very very hard, hard part of
Speaker 1: a story. You know. How do you think being parents, though,
Speaker 1: has helped her and changed her?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not so sure that it has yet.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that stable footing and some continuity,
Speaker 2: and you know, I think that those things, when they
Speaker 2: become part of a routine for her and she's able
Speaker 2: to care for herself better, will enhance her love or
Speaker 2: her ability to parent.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's young to have that many children. My god,
Speaker 1: it is yes, has she Have you seen her mature
Speaker 1: in some ways?
Speaker 2: You know, I'd like to say yes, but it's a struggle.
Speaker 2: And you know, from alcohol addiction from your mother. When
Speaker 2: addiction is in the equation, love doesn't matter. You can
Speaker 2: love someone to death and want them so much to
Speaker 2: be well and take care of themselves. But you know,
Speaker 2: I've been going to alan On for a while now
Speaker 2: to sort of deal with a lot of the stuff
Speaker 2: that comes with it, and it's helped me tremendously. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you had access to.
Speaker 1: That ever, not when I was thirteen, when I was
Speaker 1: in my twenties, because I was continuing to carry the
Speaker 1: belief that I could change the situation, I couldn't get
Speaker 1: it quite out of my head. And then when was
Speaker 1: took hearing other people's stories and also going to AA too,
Speaker 1: because it was important for me to not just be
Speaker 1: ACOA or AA or alan On, like I wanted to
Speaker 1: know the different pieces that are affected in that type
Speaker 1: of a relationship, and it did take a lot of
Speaker 1: the onus off of me, which I will always be
Speaker 1: thankful for. The hardest part is loving someone yes, and
Speaker 1: not being able to fix it for that no, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and never ever being able to stop trying. Like
Speaker 2: the you know, the one woman said to me, listen,
Speaker 2: if your addict is angry at you, you're doing something
Speaker 2: right right, And that's a very hard part for me
Speaker 2: to do, you know, Like when she has a need
Speaker 2: or she'll call and she needs something, it's so hard
Speaker 2: for me to stand in and not enable and not
Speaker 2: be so upset when she's upset of me, you know.
Speaker 1: But also this idea of tough love. You know, we
Speaker 1: never think really to associate the word tough with love,
Speaker 1: you know, right? Did you learn that lesson? And through
Speaker 1: alan On?
Speaker 2: I did, Actually I did with these wonderful you know,
Speaker 2: there's a group that I am in that is mothers
Speaker 2: of addicts and it's been so life saving for me.
Speaker 1: And I imagine that losing your mom at such a
Speaker 1: young age brings this springs up a lot, because one
Speaker 1: thing I always felt with my mother was the minute
Speaker 1: she drank, I lost her, you know. And I've I've
Speaker 1: had my younger daughter sort of give me that back
Speaker 1: to me and saying it's annoying when you drink, mom,
Speaker 1: and that put up put a bell and I was
Speaker 1: just I can't repeat this. I cannot repeat this. And
Speaker 1: it's the thing I'm the most afraid of. To give
Speaker 1: listeners just a little bit of a background. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about your childhood, like what you
Speaker 1: were like as a little kid and wear it all.
Speaker 1: Where the Rosie that we love, where was she as
Speaker 1: a little kid?
Speaker 2: Well, we were a very Catholic, Irish Catholic household. My
Speaker 2: mom had five children right in a row, so right
Speaker 2: now in my family it's sixty three, sixty two, sixty one,
Speaker 2: sixty and fifty five.
Speaker 1: So that is the meaning of Irish twins.
Speaker 2: You're not kidding. We had four in a row, and
Speaker 2: people would always think my sister and I were twins,
Speaker 2: and that my two brothers, my two older brothers, were twins,
Speaker 2: but we weren't. We were all single births. And my
Speaker 2: mother was member of the parish council at Christ the
Speaker 2: King Church and was very connected to the church. And
Speaker 2: she also had just started working when she got sick.
Speaker 2: She started again because my youngest brother was in kindergarten,
Speaker 2: so she started being as secretary at a school. And
Speaker 2: then shortly after that she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Speaker 2: And by the time they opened her up, she had
Speaker 2: had pain in her back and I remember just like
Speaker 2: it was like around October Halloween she started not feeling
Speaker 2: well and then she was in the hospital and when
Speaker 2: they opened her up, which I only found out later,
Speaker 2: everywhere so they just told her to go home.
Speaker 1: Did she tell you all of this, any of you
Speaker 1: didn't find any of this out until much later.
Speaker 2: Yes, She brought us into the hospital one at a time,
Speaker 2: my sister and I, and she gave me a little
Speaker 2: gift from the people who sell things to people in
Speaker 2: the you know those little sign like this. It was
Speaker 2: a little emerald fake ring, and she gave that to me,
Speaker 2: and she told me to never forget. She never said
Speaker 2: I love you. We were not and I love you. Family.
Speaker 2: We were very closed off to emotions. You weren't encouraged
Speaker 2: to tell your feelings. Did you ever tell her you
Speaker 2: loved her?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: But I did tell my grandmother who lived with us,
Speaker 2: who was my mother's mother, who never could cook or
Speaker 2: never could drive anywhere or you know, she was just
Speaker 2: a home bound woman who my mom took care of.
Speaker 2: And when she died, I thought, are they gonna let
Speaker 2: her stay here? Like I didn't understand what had happened.
Speaker 1: Were you all close your brothers siblings to me?
Speaker 2: Yes, we were. We were. Now there's two sides. There's
Speaker 2: three of us on one side and two on the
Speaker 2: other side. And it's been like that for years and
Speaker 2: it's very sad. But if you don't have parents to say,
Speaker 2: knock it off. Your all coming to Thanksgiving and for
Speaker 2: one day you're going to get along. We didn't have that.
Speaker 2: We didn't have anyone keeping us together as children, and
Speaker 2: so now you know, we're estranged. And it's one of
Speaker 2: the most painful things that's happened to me in my
Speaker 2: adult life. You know, it's to be estranged from, especially
Speaker 2: my sister who I was so close to for so long.
Speaker 1: It's such a tremendous loss. I mean, we will get
Speaker 1: off loss. It's not. It doesn't. That does not only
Speaker 1: define you. You've talked about the loss of your mother
Speaker 1: really sort of defining a lot of your life. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it feels like there's this theme of loss of
Speaker 1: being estranged. How do you How have you found the
Speaker 1: strength to process it all and remain hopeful?
Speaker 2: You know what it is. I don't really let people
Speaker 2: leave my life, you know. I don't let like Jackie
Speaker 2: and Jeanie, my two best friends, are still my best
Speaker 2: friends since I was three. When I knocked on her
Speaker 2: door when I was three, when we just moved into
Speaker 2: Long Island suburbia, I said, do you have anyone here
Speaker 2: who's three? And the mother let me in and she did.
Speaker 2: Jackie and we are best friends still to this day.
Speaker 1: You were on a campaign, Hey, Do you have anybody
Speaker 1: here who's three?
Speaker 2: Yes? Can you imagine letting your three year old child
Speaker 2: walk across the street and go up and knock on
Speaker 2: the houses that were just being built? Do you have
Speaker 2: anyone three? And they did, so it was a big
Speaker 2: bonus for me, and I keep people close, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't really have much loss outside of the huge
Speaker 2: ones like my mother and my sister.
Speaker 1: I feel like your sense of loyalty is just so pure.
Speaker 1: I've seen it towards me, I've seen it towards others
Speaker 1: over the course of many, many years, and I've seen
Speaker 1: you take the high road. I admire your work ethic
Speaker 1: and your resilience and feel like comedy is a part
Speaker 1: of that. Right right, When did you first realize that
Speaker 1: you were funny? Well?
Speaker 2: You know, my mom, I think, suffered with depression. And
Speaker 2: when I would come home from school, if there was
Speaker 2: Barbara streisand on, I knew it was going to be
Speaker 2: a good day. And I would do my Barber streisand
Speaker 2: impressions for my mother and for my nana. When my
Speaker 2: mom was in a good mood, I would do it.
Speaker 2: Isn't this the height and non Chalan? I would do
Speaker 2: it all you know in my kitchen. So I knew
Speaker 2: I was funny, and I knew that I was going
Speaker 2: to be an entertainer from the time I was in kindergarten.
Speaker 2: Other kids are bringing in Barbie dolls and I'm like, going,
Speaker 2: I'd like to now do a number from the Canter
Speaker 2: and Ebb musical like and I would sing for the
Speaker 2: And IM not a singer, honey, you know I can
Speaker 2: fake it a little bit, but I'm not singer. I'm
Speaker 2: not a Broadway singer. Like, let's be realistic.
Speaker 1: You know I'm not either. You're not gonna sing. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna stand up opposite you know, Gheno and low
Speaker 1: people away, right, But I do have. And you paved
Speaker 1: the way because if it hadn't been for you in
Speaker 1: Greece on Broadway, the whole idea of casting someone who
Speaker 1: is not traditionally a Broadway star performer was the beginning
Speaker 1: of my whole Broadway career.
Speaker 2: And in mine too.
Speaker 1: So you started when did you see your first Broadway show?
Speaker 2: I saw my first Broadway show in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: Bette Midler clams on a half show.
Speaker 1: Oh god, was that not the best revolutionary?
Speaker 2: Revolutionary and I remember thinking, I want to be that woman.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be here now. Streisand was not someone
Speaker 2: I ever saw on a stage, So she was only
Speaker 2: in movies. She was far away in Hollywood. She lived
Speaker 2: in Malibu. I had no knowledge of all this but Broadway,
Speaker 2: where I could wait by the stage door and see
Speaker 2: a sweaty actor come out that just sang Pippen. I
Speaker 2: would be over the moon, over the moon.
Speaker 1: How did you get into stand up?
Speaker 2: Well, when I was in high school, there was a
Speaker 2: boy in my grade whose older brother was fifteen years
Speaker 2: older than him, and he was a stand up comic,
Speaker 2: and he came to see the show where you make
Speaker 2: fun of the teachers called Senior Follies. And I had
Speaker 2: written the Senior Follies show and I performed in it.
Speaker 2: I was Gilda Radner, Rosanna and Rosanna Dana. Right you, Evan,
Speaker 2: Notice you got a little spit in your mouth that
Speaker 2: goes up and down and up and down. I would
Speaker 2: do that. And so this kid says, I'd like you
Speaker 2: to meet my brother Richie. And Richie Minovini, who was
Speaker 2: a well known comic in the touring circuit, said to me,
Speaker 2: I got a comedy club on Huntington and Huntington, will
Speaker 2: you come and try I said, I don't want to
Speaker 2: be a stand up comic. I want to be on Broadway.
Speaker 2: And he's like, well, why don't you just try it?
Speaker 2: So I went to this comedy club and I had
Speaker 2: all my friends there. It was a Saturday night, and
Speaker 2: everybody was, you know, laughing and cracking up. And I
Speaker 2: didn't even have jokes. I would say things like Mary
Speaker 2: Lynn is dating Billy and Bob doesn't know, and everybody
Speaker 2: would laugh because it was true. It was just like
Speaker 2: it was like being in the lunch room at my cafeteria.
Speaker 2: And so Richie comes up to me and says, why
Speaker 2: don't you come back tomorrow. Well tomorrow was a school night, Sunday,
Speaker 2: so none of my friends could go. So I went
Speaker 2: up and I died a horrible death. I had not
Speaker 2: you didn't know you, You didn't know your audience. Now
Speaker 2: I didn't know anyone in the crowd. And I was
Speaker 2: standing up there going like, you know, here's my impression
Speaker 2: of pac Man. Who whoa? That's what I literally. And
Speaker 2: I was fifteen, sixteen years old, you know. So he
Speaker 2: said keep coming back, and he let me go sit
Speaker 2: and watch and I can't believe that my father let me.
Speaker 2: But I went every night to these comedy clubs and
Speaker 2: I would sit and watch and then Shirley Hemphill do
Speaker 2: you remember her from What's Happening? Shirley Hemphill was the
Speaker 2: headliner at the Eastside Comedy Club and she came in
Speaker 2: a day early when I was doing the hosting for
Speaker 2: the open mic night, and she said to Richie Manavini,
Speaker 2: she's opening for me this weekend, and he said she's
Speaker 2: not ready. She said, she's opening for me or I'm
Speaker 2: not going on and you're to pay your fifty bucks
Speaker 2: a show. And it was my first paying gig.
Speaker 1: And how old were you?
Speaker 2: Sixteen?
Speaker 1: Wow? So wait, then take me back a little bit.
Speaker 1: So then you go to college and then drop out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I go to college and I had a one
Speaker 2: six two grade point average at Dickinson College, which was
Speaker 2: a D minus because I would not get up at
Speaker 2: seven am to take World History. I would you know.
Speaker 2: I had writing class I loved, a photography class I loved,
Speaker 2: but all the ones that you were required to take,
Speaker 2: I like, wouldn't show up. And I remember environmental science
Speaker 2: I couldn't understand. And the final was there are three lakes,
Speaker 2: and they told you all about the sedimentary stuff under
Speaker 2: which lake would be empty after this rainfall. And I
Speaker 2: run oh Lake B because there were some terrorists with
Speaker 2: camels who were coming in to the country and this
Speaker 2: was during the Iran Contra thing, you know, and they
Speaker 2: stopped at this lake and the camels drank. And I
Speaker 2: wrote this elaborate story, and she, this woman, professor Betty Barnes,
Speaker 2: called me into her office and she said, now, miss O'Donnell,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm going to be able to
Speaker 2: pass you with this, but this is the funniest thing
Speaker 2: I've ever read. I think you should go into comedy.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you the D minus. And she gave
Speaker 2: me a D minus instead of failing me. Was so
Speaker 2: nice of her. Then I quit that college and I
Speaker 2: went to Boston University, a conservatory where you had to audition,
Speaker 2: and I auditioned, and I went there to be an actress.
Speaker 2: And during the night I would go to the comedy
Speaker 2: clubs and do open mic night. And one night they
Speaker 2: said to me, so and so has passed out drunk.
Speaker 2: Will you go with Dennis Leary, who was unknown to
Speaker 2: this club in the suburbs of Boston and will you
Speaker 2: do thirty minutes? And I said sure, Now Brook, I
Speaker 2: had never done thirty minutes, but it was sixty dollars
Speaker 2: for one show. And I went with Dennis Leary and
Speaker 2: two other Boston comedians and I got up there. I
Speaker 2: did about six minutes and then I said good night,
Speaker 2: and then I'm sure I closed with whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 2: you know, because it was such a great pac Man Joe.
Speaker 2: And on the way home, Dennis Leary said, listen, if
Speaker 2: you say you can do thirty, you better have at
Speaker 2: least twenty. And I said, well, thank you, I'm going
Speaker 2: to try to get twenty. And then I dropped out
Speaker 2: and I started getting gigs, and eventually there was a
Speaker 2: woman in the club east Side Comedy Club that my
Speaker 2: friend's older brother owned, and she came over to me
Speaker 2: and said, Hi, I'm Ed McMahon's daughter. And I said,
Speaker 2: you're not Ed McMahon's daughter. You're in the middle of
Speaker 2: a long island. What are you doing? And well, my
Speaker 2: dad has me as a producer of Star Search. I'm
Speaker 2: here looking for talent. We'd like to book you on
Speaker 2: Star Search. I was like, are you kidding me. She
Speaker 2: gave me your card. The next day, Star Search called
Speaker 2: me and I was on my way out to Los
Speaker 2: Angeles and I won five episodes, and you got like
Speaker 2: twenty seven hundred dollars each time you won. I was
Speaker 2: richer than I had ever been. I ran out of
Speaker 2: material on the fifth or sixth episode. I called my
Speaker 2: comic friends at home and said, what jokes of yours
Speaker 2: can I use? And they told me what I could do.
Speaker 2: But I lost that six week and that was the
Speaker 2: beginning of my career. And as a result of doing
Speaker 2: Star Search, I got booked all over the country and
Speaker 2: I started touring when I was like twenty two.
Speaker 1: I'd love to pivot to when you were on your
Speaker 1: show The ROSI O'donnalds show and it ran for six years,
Speaker 1: six yes seasons. What do you remember most from that
Speaker 1: experience in that time?
Speaker 2: The love, truthfully, the love of the cast and then
Speaker 2: the crew, The love of all those producers that helped
Speaker 2: me do it. The love of the people I grew
Speaker 2: up watching and loving, you know. I mean, I remember
Speaker 2: Mary Tyler Moore came on the show and I went
Speaker 2: into her dressing room and introduced myself and showed her
Speaker 2: the notebook that I had kept since her show was on,
Speaker 2: with trivia questions written in childish scrawl, and she was like,
Speaker 2: is this real? I was like, it certainly, is so
Speaker 2: getting to me.
Speaker 1: As if you would have made it up, Like the
Speaker 1: night before, I'm gonna I'm going to write in a book,
Speaker 1: I'm going to pretend.
Speaker 2: To Mary Tyler Moore exactly. All I wanted to do
Speaker 2: was get that Mary Richard. But you know, I loved
Speaker 2: doing it. I loved every minute of it. Now, there
Speaker 2: were things that became too much. It became too big
Speaker 2: too soon. It became an overwhelming thing to be shot
Speaker 2: out of a cannon into the stratosphere and then say,
Speaker 2: you know you got to stay up there. I'm like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm only doing this until my kid goes
Speaker 2: to kindergarten. Then I'm quitting.
Speaker 1: And then you're dubbed Queen of Nice.
Speaker 2: Which was never accurate. You know, I it wasn't a
Speaker 2: horrible thing to be called, but I didn't think it
Speaker 2: was accurate. I don't think anyone who ever saw my
Speaker 2: stand up in my heyday would think that I was nice.
Speaker 2: I went after Woody Allen and I went after you know, sexism,
Speaker 2: and I went after you know, I cursed. I was
Speaker 2: you know, I was definitely not the Queen of nice
Speaker 2: in terms of my stand up.
Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting how it was kind of like a
Speaker 1: negative I mean, you know that you take something like
Speaker 1: that and in that context, and in Hollywood it's almost
Speaker 1: it's it is an insult in many ways.
Speaker 2: Well, at the time, people were being killed. On the
Speaker 2: Jenny Jones Show, they had a person who was, you know,
Speaker 2: upset that the person had a crush on him and
Speaker 2: ended up murdering one of the former guests. You know,
Speaker 2: Heralda was getting punched in the face every day. So
Speaker 2: according to the standards of daytime at the time, with
Speaker 2: the exclusion of Oprah, I was the Queen of nice
Speaker 2: only because nobody was getting bloodied on my show.
Speaker 1: You know, can you talk to me about your decision
Speaker 1: to leave the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I took the show, the Rose O'donnald Show,
Speaker 2: I told them that I only wanted to go until
Speaker 2: my son was in kindergarten. Well, I ended up going
Speaker 2: until he was in first grade, and when the show
Speaker 2: was a big hit in year two, they said we
Speaker 2: want to extend your contract. I said, okay, I had
Speaker 2: signed a four year deal. I said, I'll give you
Speaker 2: two more years. That was six years now. The whole
Speaker 2: staff knew this from the beginning. I told everyone, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to leave after that year. And everybody was like,
Speaker 2: h you'll never leave. You're not going to walk away
Speaker 2: from that money. You would never do it. And I
Speaker 2: left and people were shocked. Howard Stern asked me a lot.
Speaker 2: Don't you wish you'd just stayed on a few more
Speaker 2: years and got a few more hundred millions? And my
Speaker 2: point was this, if you ever have one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars and you think you need more, you have missed
Speaker 2: the meaning of life. So I had more money than
Speaker 2: a human should have, and I said, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a huge decision to make. And I
Speaker 1: know that we've talked about a lot of your pivotal experiences,
Speaker 1: but if you look back at your life, is there
Speaker 1: a moment where you thought, oh shit, now what do
Speaker 1: I do? You know? It's not this podcast?
Speaker 2: No, no, honey, not at all. I think that after
Speaker 2: the Tom Selleck interview, where the first time I actually
Speaker 2: confronted someone about their political beliefs about guns, and he
Speaker 2: was the head of the NRA spokesperson at that point.
Speaker 2: He was not the head, he was the spokesperson for
Speaker 2: the NRA, and Columbine had just happened, and he was
Speaker 2: on a few weeks after that. And after I did that,
Speaker 2: and then the NRA started sending, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of mail, not all of it happy, And I thought,
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 1: What did I do?
Speaker 2: What did I step in?
Speaker 1: Was this when you were hosting your show? This was
Speaker 1: when you were hosting your show, right.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, Columbine was ninety nine.
Speaker 1: How did you move through it?
Speaker 2: You know? I moved through it by realizing that what
Speaker 2: I had to say was important and that women aren't
Speaker 2: just going to sit back and shut up as they're
Speaker 2: killing our children in schools. And as a mother, I
Speaker 2: was a young mother, I was very broken by Columbine.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it was a devastating, It was just
Speaker 1: devastating in every way. But there was also a shift.
Speaker 1: And then for you personally, you go to the view
Speaker 1: and you get to have opinions.
Speaker 2: Yes, what was that? Like? Wow?
Speaker 1: It was you know what.
Speaker 2: I grew up playing sports. I'm a very big tomboy.
Speaker 2: I played baseball. I played basketball, was on every team.
Speaker 2: I was the captain. You know. I was very into
Speaker 2: supporting other women. Title nine. Passed the ball, you get,
Speaker 2: the layup, you pass, you run. You know. It was
Speaker 2: team work. That's where I was going in. So I
Speaker 2: went in there with a team work attitude. But you know,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Hasselbeck was on there and was the producer of
Speaker 2: an all woman's talk show with supposally a woman's voice.
Speaker 2: Was a man, an old sis white man, Republican who
Speaker 2: was against everything that I believed in and stood for.
Speaker 2: And he loved Elizabeth Hasselbeck and would go into her
Speaker 2: little dressing room and give her notes and talking points
Speaker 2: of the Republican press that they would release daily. She
Speaker 2: had the talking points, and you know, I was trying
Speaker 2: to get her to feel more than to fact. I'm like,
Speaker 2: but what do you feel about this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And I tried. Here's what I did. When I took
Speaker 2: the job. I said to myself, I'm gonna love her
Speaker 2: no matter what. I took her to a first Broadway show.
Speaker 2: I took her kids to see the Nickelodeon shows with
Speaker 2: me and my kids. I had her to my house
Speaker 2: with her husband. They swam in my pool. I thought
Speaker 2: we were friends in a civil kind of way, and
Speaker 2: then one day on the show, she kind of threw
Speaker 2: me under the bus and I was like, are you
Speaker 2: fucking kidding me? And I finished the show, got my coat,
Speaker 2: walked out and said I Am not going back. And
Speaker 2: I didn't until a few of the years later when
Speaker 2: they asked me to come back, and Whoopy was on it,
Speaker 2: and you know it, we clashed in ways that I
Speaker 2: was shocked by.
Speaker 1: That takes balls, all of it. I have to say,
Speaker 1: do you think that they you were made to be
Speaker 1: the villain in all of that?
Speaker 2: In some ways I was, but it was all right.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I had produced my own show.
Speaker 2: I was the solo boss, and here I was not
Speaker 2: having any power to make decisions. There would be you know,
Speaker 2: the Rory Kennedy documentary about Abu Grabe was out about
Speaker 2: the torture that we did as a country, how we
Speaker 2: sanctioned it. And Bill Getty wanted to do the new
Speaker 2: Fall lipstick colors and I'm like, we're not going to talk.
Speaker 2: And then you know, Bill Cosby was a big topic,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to discuss Bill Cosby and Whoopee did not.
Speaker 2: Do you regret doing that show? No, I don't have
Speaker 2: any regrets in terms of like career and show business
Speaker 2: like that. I feel like each thing I learned something.
Speaker 2: But I know this is not the best use of
Speaker 2: my talent to get in a show where I have
Speaker 2: to argue and defend you know, basic principles of humanity
Speaker 2: and kindness. I don't know it was. It was not
Speaker 2: something that I would ever do again, you know. And
Speaker 2: when she died, Barbara and I, you know, got along
Speaker 2: after we went out to dinner. We knew each other
Speaker 2: way before I did that show, before she asked me
Speaker 2: to do it, and we remained you know, friendly towards
Speaker 2: the end. And you know, I forgave her because she
Speaker 2: was older and she did the best that she could
Speaker 2: with you know, what she had to work with. But
Speaker 2: it's nothing I'd want to do again. I could say that.
Speaker 1: Yes, Something that strikes me about your career is that
Speaker 1: throughout it, there have been women who've lifted you up. Yes,
Speaker 1: in your comedy and your shows.
Speaker 2: Well, and you know what's interesting, you know it's interesting too, Brooke,
Speaker 2: is that all of my movies were directed by women. Well,
Speaker 2: like I did League of the Row was Penny. She
Speaker 2: picked me out of being a VJ and gave me that.
Speaker 2: And then Sleepless in Seattle was Nora Ephron. She not
Speaker 2: only helped my career, she got me an apartment in
Speaker 2: her apartment building, the Apthorpe, and I lived there for
Speaker 2: the whole time I had Parker as a baby and
Speaker 2: was doing my talk show. And there have been women
Speaker 2: who have taken me in and nurtured me in a
Speaker 2: way that I wish all women did with each other.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is something very I'm sure your mom
Speaker 1: can see this and can see that you didn't lose faith,
Speaker 1: and that you weren't alone, and that there were women
Speaker 1: that came to your rescue. I'm just getting a note
Speaker 1: today my producer, Julia, wants to know if you'd ever
Speaker 1: do a Now and Then sequel.
Speaker 2: I would love that. I would love to do it
Speaker 2: Now and then Sequel. You know what's funny about the
Speaker 2: movie Now and Then. My character was gay, she was
Speaker 2: a lesbian. And in the film, I'm very close to
Speaker 2: Rita Wilson's character and I'm a gynecologist and I'm delivering
Speaker 2: her baby. And then I look up up from catching
Speaker 2: the baby and I say to her, I love you,
Speaker 2: you know, just friends like you know, not as a lover.
Speaker 2: And when they showed the film, the producer said, let's
Speaker 2: take out that she's gay, and they took every little
Speaker 2: tiny thing that I had done to build the character
Speaker 2: into an accurate gay woman and made her straight.
Speaker 1: God did that just piss you off?
Speaker 2: Well? I was like, this can't be really happening. Is
Speaker 2: this really happening? But you know, this was before Will
Speaker 2: and Grace, This was before Ellen was out, This was
Speaker 2: before you know, and it was very controversial to be gay,
Speaker 2: and it was contraver. My agent didn't know if I
Speaker 2: should take the job because what if people find out
Speaker 2: that you are gay? And I was like, come on,
Speaker 2: I'm an actress.
Speaker 1: When did you come when did you come out?
Speaker 2: After I I had two foster children and one of
Speaker 2: them we had for many years and I tried to
Speaker 2: adopt her and the state of Florida was not allowing
Speaker 2: gay parents foster parents to adopt the children that they raised.
Speaker 2: So I joined an ACLU lawsuit against the State of
Speaker 2: Florida and the Loft and Cruteaux lawsuit. Two men who
Speaker 2: were pediatric who were aids nurses and they would take
Speaker 2: the children of the dying people with AIDS and take
Speaker 2: the positive children and also the negative children, some of
Speaker 2: the children zero converted, but they wouldn't allow them to
Speaker 2: adopt these children that they had nursed back from the
Speaker 2: brink of death. So I joined the lawsuit with them
Speaker 2: because I wanted there to be a cause to coming
Speaker 2: out more than you know, hey I'm gay.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I wanted there to be some something that would be
Speaker 2: done to help children and need as a result, you know,
Speaker 2: And this lawsuit felt like God was saying, hey, you're up, kid,
Speaker 2: You're up.
Speaker 1: You know, well, it's using using what you have in
Speaker 1: a very positive way and making a difference for the
Speaker 1: right reasons. So that it isn't you know, you on
Speaker 1: a soapbox or you making it about you. You were
Speaker 1: making it about something bigger, which I'm so sure helped
Speaker 1: so many people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was something that you know, being
Speaker 2: gay was never hard for me. It was harder being
Speaker 2: a child. So when I sort of figured out that
Speaker 2: I was gay, I was sixteen. I was driving my
Speaker 2: car by myself for the first time and I said
Speaker 2: out loud, I am a lesbian, I am a gay person.
Speaker 2: I am a gay person driving a car and I
Speaker 2: am a lesbian. I like, I just had to say it,
Speaker 2: and I didn't trust to say it in my house.
Speaker 2: I didn't trust to say it anywhere except alone in
Speaker 2: my car. And so that's that was, you know that
Speaker 2: I didn't have the trauma of, oh, your parents are
Speaker 2: going to find out a lot of gay kids worry
Speaker 2: about their parents looking at them with disapproving eyes. I
Speaker 2: didn't have that, you know, and so it wasn't as
Speaker 2: big of a challenge as it is for most people.
Speaker 1: For me, that was the incredible ROSI o'donnal. If you
Speaker 1: want to hear more from her, go listen to her
Speaker 1: podcast Onward, which is available now wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Now What with Burke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Our lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional
Speaker 1: research and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by
Speaker 1: Vahid Fraser.