Rosie O’Donnell is finally back behind the talk-show desk.
Yes, the former host of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” and “The View” will be serving as guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” the week of Aug. 17 while Kimmel is on vacation (as part of his summer rotation). He said he’d tapped O’Donnell for the stint as “a special treat” for Donald Trump, given the president’s 20-year-long vendetta against her for mocking his bankruptcies on “The View.”
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O’Donnell tells Variety that the offer “came out of the blue,” since not only have they never spoken in person, but they had what she describes as an “adversarial relationship.”
“We’ve never spoken on the phone; we’ve texted a few times. Howard Stern tried to make amends with us, so we’ve been at the same parties a few times and I would talk to his wife. But Jimmy was never a fan of mine, and it was kind of an adversarial relationship — not that I was fighting back, but I was like, ‘OK, one of the bro guys…,’” O’Donnell recalls.
But that all changed when O’Donnell reached out to Kimmel following the death of his beloved Uncle Frank Potenza, a former NYPD officer who’d made a number of memorable comedy-sketch appearances on his nephew’s late-night show.
“When everything happened with his uncle dying, I wrote him and he wrote back. So, when my publicist called and said, ‘Do you want to guest-host ‘Kimmel’ for a week?’ I said, ‘I haven’t ever even been a guest!’ And then I said, ‘If you’re positive that that’s an actual offer and he wants me to do it, then I most certainly will,’” says O’Donnell, adding, “I was surprised, to tell you the truth, and very thankful.”
Another reason O’Donnell took the gig, other than having the opportunity to air out Trump to an audience of millions on ABC, is to support the late-night community amid Trump’s war on TV comedy, one that’s cost Stephen Colbert his “Late Show” and nearly claimed Kimmel as well.
“I support [Kimmel] in what he’s doing with the First Amendment, and our ability as entertainers and citizens to speak out against our government that’s enshrined in the Founding Fathers’ writings about our government, so I think he’s fantastic,” says O’Donnell. “And I wish that Stephen Colbert had the same kind of support when it happened to him, because he shouldn’t be gone either.
As for the Colbert of it all, and Paramount Skydance owner (and Trump winer-and-diner) David Ellison’s pending takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes CNN, O’Donnell didn’t hold back.
“It would be like Fox taking over all news channels. Imagine if Fox was not one outlier and Fox was the mainstay? That’s what’s happening with Hollywood now and the Ellisons, and it’s tragic,” O’Donnell says.
She then pointed to Ellison and Bari Weiss’ right-wing makeover of CBS News and its crown jewel, “60 Minutes,” as an example of what’s to come if Ellison’s $111 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery is approved.
“Look at what’s happened to CBS News and ‘60 Minutes,’ which was the gold star of their entire network, and they blew it up,” claims O’Donnell. “This Bari Weiss person, I don’t know how she can live with herself. There are people who are sidling up to him and history will record all of their names, what they did, and who they stood next to.”
O’Donnell continues, “If you’re in a room with 10 Nazis at a table and you’re the only one who’s not, there’s a pretty good chance you’re a Nazi.”
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