Rosie O’Donnell recently bragged about turning down a massive fortune to renew her hit talk show, recalling that her bank account was already comfortably stuffed.
Videos by Suggest
Indeed, the 64-year-old revealed she was offered a jaw-dropping $100 million to renew The Rosie O’Donnell Show. However, she turned her nose up at the cash… because she had the same amount in her bank account already.
“When I heard that [number], I thought, ‘OK, now I’m done,” the comedian told Page Six. “And everyone was like, ‘Why are you leaving?’”
O’Donnell explained that she wanted to spend more time with her children once she realized she had enough money to take care of her loved ones, donate to charity, and help strangers.
“I wanted to be at their softball games,” she told the outlet. “I wanted to be at school plays.”
The Rosie O’Donnell Show ran from 1996 to 2002. It was so successful that Warner Bros. offered her $100 million for just two more years. However, she shocked executives by declining.
“They were like, ‘Why would you say no?’” The View alum recalled. “I was like, ‘Because I already have that money and if I think I need more, something’s wrong with me.’”
“I don’t get the billionaires; I don’t get how people only measure their life in money, not what they can do for other people,” the Flintstones star added.
Why Rosie O’Donnell has Returned to the United States After Moving to Ireland
After moving to Ireland following the 2024 election, O’Donnell has returned to the US for a limited Broadway run of her one-woman show, Common Knowledge. The production explores her childhood and the loss of her mother to cancer at age 10. It also sheds light on her life in Ireland and raising her autistic son, Clay.
O’Donnell told Page Six that the show centers on motherhood, specifically how a “motherless daughter” learned “to be a mother to all these children.” She also noted that raising Clay has been “a very different” experience from parenting her other children.
“It’s allowed me to see how I parented when I was younger in the midst of a high level of fame versus how I parent now with this one child who’s more vulnerable than any of my other children ever were,” she told the outlet. “[It] creates an intimacy in some way.”