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Rosie O'Donnell says she was never on Ellen DeGeneres' talk show because she hurt her feelings

"I never really got over it."

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Published on September 16, 2022 12:28PM EDT

Now that The Ellen DeGeneres Show has finished its 19-year run, people have questions. For example: Why did Rosie O'Donnell never once appear on the daytime talk show?

After all, O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres were both out lesbians in the early 2000s, when LGBTQ representation in pop culture was much rarer. O'Donnell is also an accomplished veteran of daytime TV in her own right, having hosted The Rosie O'Donnell Show from 1996-2002 and then moderated The View from 2006-2007. So it seems like she would've been a natural fit for DeGeneres' couch.

But that wasn't the case, and the reason — at least according to O'Donnell — was because DeGeneres hurt her feelings.

O'Donnell explained what went down on the latest episode of Watch What Happens Live, after host Andy Cohen read a fan-submitted question asking why O'Donnell was never a guest on Ellen's show.

"We had a little bit of a weird thing, and after my show went off the air and hers was coming on the air, Larry King was on Ellen's show and he said, 'Whatever happened to Rosie O'Donnell? Her show went down the tubes! She came out as a lesbian and disappeared!'" O'Donnell recounted, doing an impression of the late King's gruff voice.

She continued, "And Ellen said, and I'm quoting, 'I don't know Rosie. We're not friends.' I was in bed with Kelli [Carpenter, O'Donnell's ex-partner] and I went, 'Did I just hear that or was that a hallucination?' No, that's what happened. It hurt my feelings like a baby, and I never really got over it."

O'Donnell subsequently added that producers on The Ellen DeGeneres Show did ask her to come on once towards the end of its run, while she was starring on the Showtime series SMILF.

"I was gonna go on for SMILF, but I wanted to bring someone with me because I thought it might be a little less awkward, and they didn't want to do that," O'Donnell told Cohen, before concluding, "I wish her all good things in her life and that she should be well. So there you go. But I never did it."

Watch the clip above.

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