Rosie O’Donnell quietly returned to the United States after self-imposing an Irish exile following Donald Trump’s re-election.
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During an interview with Chris Cuomo on his SiriusXM show, the Flintstones star revealed she recently returned to the United States to visit her family. The former TV host had moved to Ireland with her teenage daughter in January 2025, just before President Trump’s second inauguration.
“I was recently home for two weeks, and I did not really tell anyone,” she revealed to Cuomo, per The New York Post. “I just went to see my family; I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country; I wanted to feel what it felt like; I wanted to hold my children again. And I hadn’t been home in over a year.”
She explained she “wanted to make sure that it was safe” for her and her daughter to return over the summer to spend time with family during her school break. Speaking with Cuomo, she admitted America “feels like a very different country” now, partly because she hasn’t “been watching the news” or following “American culture television” while living in Ireland. (Honestly, not a bad strategy.)
“I’ve been in a place where celebrity worship does not exist,” O’Donnell detailed. “I’ve been in a place where there’s more balance to the news. There’s more balance to life. It’s not everyone trying to get more, more, more. It’s a very different culture. And I felt the United States in a completely different way than I ever had before I left.”
Rosie O’Donnell Claims She Doesn’t Regret Leaving the United States
O’Donnell said she doesn’t “regret leaving at all,” adding that she did “what I needed to do to save myself, my child, and my sanity.”
“And I’m very happy that I’m not in the midst of it there because the energy that I felt while in the United States was — if I could use the most simple word I can think of — it was scary,” she explained. “There’s a feeling that something is really wrong, and no one is doing anything about it.”
It’s no secret that Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell aren’t exactly best friends. The comedian even moved to Ireland after Trump’s election, and last year, the Home Alone 2 star even threatened to revoke her citizenship.
“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last July.
“She is a Threat to Humanity,” the former reality TV personality added. “And should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
However, thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment, not even President Trump has the power to cancel your U.S. citizenship.