‘I’m someone who never thought I would move to another country … Here we are’
The actress and comedienne, who has been embroiled in a war of words with Trump for nearly 20 years, has decided to move to Ireland after his return to power following his November election win over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Referring to herself as the star of The Flintstones, O’Donnell, 62, revealed that she and her 12-year-old daughter Dakota packed their bags and headed to Ireland in January.
“It’s been pretty wonderful, I have to say. The people are so loving and so kind, so welcoming and I’m very grateful,” O’Donnell said in a selfie-style video.
The Emmy winner left America, she said, because “that’s what I decided would be the best for myself and my 12-year-old child.”
“I’m happy. (Dakota) is happy. I miss my other kids. I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home and I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country and when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back,” the mother of five said.
O’Donnell, who is obtaining her Irish citizenship through her ancestry, also took aim at Trump’s early days back in office.
“I’m someone who never thought I would move to another country … Here we are … It’s been heartbreaking to see what’s happening politically and hard for me personally as well. The personal is political, as we all know,” she said.
Elsewhere, O’Donnell hit out at the media for its reluctance to criticize Trump and encouraged her followers “to stand up.”
“The mainstream media has been letting us all down in America, where the fourth estate is required to maintain a democracy,” she said. “They haven’t been doing their job.”
She added, “I encourage everyone to stand up, to use their voice, to protest, to demand that we follow the constitution in our country, and not a king and not a man and we don’t have cruelty as part of our governing style.”
The League of Their Own star concluded her message, which generated over 193,000 likes and 26,000 comments, by urging her followers to stay positive.
“Protect your sanity is all I can say. Protect your sanity as much as you can, and try not to swim in the chaos if possible,” she said. “But I know it’s nearly impossible when you’re there in the middle of it.”
The feud between O’Donnell and Trump goes back to 2006 when she referred to the billionaire businessman as a “snake-oil salesman” on The View after he held a press conference to announce that he would not be stripping Tara Conner of her Miss USA title following an underage scandal involving booze and drugs.
“He’s the moral authority? Left the first wife, had an affair, left the second wife, had an affair, had kids both times, but he’s the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America. Donald, sit and spin, my friend!” she railed. “I don’t enjoy him.”
O’Donnell continued to hit out at the notion that Trump is a “self-made man.”
“He’s been bankrupt so many times!” she cried. “The people that he owed money to got shorted out, but he got to try again and again.”
“You can’t make false statements,” Trump said at the time. “Rosie will rue the words she said. I’ll most likely sue her for making those false statements – and it’ll be fun. Rosie’s a loser. A real loser. I look forward to taking lots of money from my nice fat little Rosie.”
When O’Donnell announced her engagement to then-girlfriend Michelle Rounds in 2011, Trump insulted the pair. “I feel sorry for Rosie‘s new partner in love whose parents are devastated at the thought of their daughter being with @Rosie–a true loser,” he wrote on social media.
Trump also called O’Donnell’s short-lived talk show, which ran from 2011 to 2012, “a complete and total disaster.”
He continued to mock her when he added, “Rosie is crude, rude, obnoxious and dumb – other than that I like her very much!”
O’Donnell later told PEOPLE that Trump’s jabs were hard to take.
Trump made another dig at O’Donnell during the Republican primaries back in 2016 when he responded to moderator Megyn Kelly, who asked him about calling women “‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’”
“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump fired back.
“(Megyn Kelly) hit me with a very, very hard question,” Trump said. “That was when I came up with the Rosie O’Donnell statement, which really got a tremendous applause. That was the biggest applause in the evening actually, so it was sort of interesting.”’
O’Donnell’s departure follows fellow comedienne Ellen DeGeneres, who moved to the U.K. with her wife Portia de Rossi in November.