Laughing it off! Rosie O’Donnell wasn’t bothered by Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s response to the comedian’s confession that she once had “a little bit of a crush” on her.
“It’s crazy. She was so afraid of the concept of a lesbian having a crush on her that she had to go directly to Jesus— do not pass go, do not collect $200,” the A League of Their Own actress, 57, said during an Instagram Live on Wednesday, March 27. “She kept on calling on Jesus. Yeah, Jesus was going to save her from the gay who thought she was cute!”
O’Donnell addressed the situation again after a follower brought up the 41-year-old remarks, which included insisting that if O’Donnell were a man, her comments would’ve been viewed differently.
“And I wasn’t grooming her, I was loving her. She couldn’t take it that somebody was nice to her! She liked me back. It wasn’t like a sexual thing, but she liked me back. We were friends, and I have proof. Watch all those episodes,” O’Donnell said before addressing the Survivor alum’s message that she tried to call her but her number had changed. “She definitely should call me as she just accused me of sexually harassing her by having a crush that was mutual. It was. We were like two girls on a softball team.”
O’Donnell went on to explain, once again, that there was nothing sexual about her feelings. “It was not a sexual crush. There are so many people I have crushes on, starting with Julie Andrews when I was a kid, all the way through right now, Russell Brand — total crush on that guy,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I want to have sex with them … It doesn’t mean that for me. It just means a crush.”
The New York native opened up about her feelings toward Hasselbeck in a new book titled Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of The View. After the excerpt with O’Donnell’s comments made headlines, Hasselbeck spoke out on the Tuesday, March 26, episode of Fox & Friends.
“I’d like to be able to say that I didn’t, but I read that,” she told viewers. “I’ll be very honest: I read it and I immediately started praying. … And I pray now the Holy Spirit gives me the words to articulate this, but I think it can be addressed with both truth and grace.”
Hasselbeck added: “If you took her words and you replaced ‘Rosie’ for ‘Ronald,’ there would be an objectification of women in the workplace, so that is disturbing and it’s wrong. And whether you’re a man or whether you’re a woman and you’re objectifying women in the workplace, it’s wrong.”
O’Donnell and Hasselbeck appeared on The View together for years in the ‘00s before getting in a heated on-air argument in May 2007, days before the SMILF star quit the show. Hasselbeck, for her part, left the ABC morning talk show in 2013.
