Rosie O'Donnell Returns to the Late-Night Desk on Jimmy Kimmel Live! — and Brings the Trump Feud With Her
Rosie O'Donnell sat behind a late-night desk for the first time in more than three decades this week, guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! for four nights starting Monday while Jimmy Kimmel is on vacation. Her opening monologue covered the 1990s, Ireland, Donald Trump, and a crush on her new pharmacist — and it landed the day before ABC sued the Federal Communications Commission.
O'Donnell told the audience she had not been behind a TV desk since The Rosie O'Donnell Show, which ran from 1996 to 2002. A lot has changed since then, she said sarcastically — citing a war in the Middle East, climate change, and a president embroiled in scandals (Deadline).
The biggest change in her own life: she moved to Ireland. O'Donnell said she relocated before Trump's inauguration after reading Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint, and deciding she needed to leave the United States. She brought her then-11-year-old child Clay with her. Despite O'Donnell's request to keep the move quiet, Clay told their entire class — announcing, as O'Donnell impersonated, that they had to move because the president hates their mother, but that their mother hates him more (Deadline).
O'Donnell has lived in Ireland for the past two years, she told the studio audience. She spoke warmly about the welcome she received from people there, and joked about wanting to date her new pharmacist (YouTube).
She also addressed Trump directly mid-monologue. "Hi, I know you're watching!" she said. The two have a public feud stretching back years, and O'Donnell referred to him as "Mango Mussolini" during the broadcast (Deadline).
The timing gave the monologue an extra edge. The day after O'Donnell's first night, ABC filed a lawsuit against the FCC, claiming the agency's investigations are part of a Trump administration "retaliatory campaign" to curb the network's free speech (Deadline). In an earlier August podcast appearance on On with Kara Swisher, O'Donnell had said she does not listen to or pay heed to the FCC (Deadline).
Her four-night guest-hosting run, confirmed by The New York Times, also included a tribute to actor Hayden Panettiere (Rolling Stone). The episode listing on ABC's website shows segments titled "Trump Hid in Catering Cart to Sneak Out of Turkey" and "Hosts Patriot Games" (ABC). An earlier July segment had O'Donnell discussing what led her to write her one-woman show (YouTube).
For a comedian who built her name on a daytime talk show in the late 1990s, stepping into Kimmel's chair was a full-circle moment — one she used to talk about everything from Irish pharmacists to the political situation she says drove her out of the country.
