Rosie O’Donnell is opening up about the pros and cons of living far away from the United States in Ireland.
“The best part is that they don’t have celebrity culture there. Nobody really cares that you’re famous,” O’Donnell, 64, shared on the Tuesday, August 11, episode of the “Good Hang” podcast. “Now when people knew that I moved there, people would say, ‘Welcome, Rosie. Welcome to Ireland. You belong here.’ It’s so sweet.’”
One memory that O’Donnell won’t forget was when she visited a beer garden and found herself sitting next to a couple and their 2-year-old baby.
After spending nearly two and a half hours chatting away, the comedian thanked them for being so lovely and friendly. What came next was a thoughtful message and surprisingly sweet revelation.
“They said, ‘And by the way Rosie, we’re huge fans.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really? You thought you’d wait till the end of the dinner to bring that up?’ Like being funny, right?” O’Donnell recalled to podcast host Amy Poehler. “And she goes, ‘Well, surely it’s not the most important thing now, is it?’ I thought it was a sentence you’d never hear in America. It’s not the most important thing about you. And that’s what I found out when I was over in Ireland.”
O’Donnell — who is raising her 13-year-old adopted son Clay in Ireland — said there are some drawbacks to being away from the country she grew up in.
For starters, she isn’t close enough to her grown kids and longtime friends.
“My friends are really my family and community and it’s been very difficult,” she said. “It’s lonely sometimes, but I have met two really good friends whose little kids have autism and they’re the same age as Clay and we socialize together and that’s been really helpful.” (In September 2022, O’Donnell revealed Clay’s autism diagnosis for the first time.)
“It’s been very beautiful and very, very healing for me,” O’Donnell continued when describing her life in Ireland. “People say they notice a difference and I think I’m just calmer. I’m calmer being over there.”
The former cohost of The View still makes plenty of trips to the States. In June, she was able to attend the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
She was also part of Rosie O’Donnell: Common Knowledge, a critically acclaimed one-woman show held in New York from July 22 to August 8.
