Rosie O’Donnell is being sued by a former senior producer of the View who claims that the comedian slandered her in front of the show’s staff and got her fired.
The suit, filed by Jennifer Shepard-Brookman in New York state court on Thursday, Oct. 15, states that O’Donnell resented her fellow co-host, and moderator of the ABC daytime show, Whoopi Goldberg, the Hollywood Reporter reports. In her complaint, Shepard-Brookman says she was fired in 2015 after having worked on the show since 2011, and claims that O’Donnell “accused Ms. Brookman of teaming with Ms. Goldberg to undermine Ms. O’Donnell.”
Shepard-Brookman also claims that the former View co-host, 53, “publicly accused Ms. Brookman of betraying professional and personal confidences and leaking sensitive information to the media” in a meeting back with executive producers in January, and that O’Donnell continued to spread these false accusations. O’Donnell left the show the following month.
“To be clear, Ms. Brookman denies that she ever leaked any such information about the show to the media,” the complaint stated. The suit stated one cause of action, slander, which Brookman maintains “caused her to suffer intense emotional distress … destroyed her professional reputation, and led to her termination of employment.”
The amount of damages is unspecified. O’Donnell’s attorney told the Hollywood Reporter that the allegations made in the suit are “baseless.”
Earlier this month, O’Donnell’s adopted daughter Chelsea slammed her mother in an interview, leaving the actress “heartbroken,” according to her rep.
A source also told Us Weekly that O’Donnell is “extremely depressed.”
