Liberal comedian Rosie O’Donnell said that she was surprised to be tapped to guest-host Jimmy Kimmel’s show, but said she was thankful to be filling in for the ABC late-night host known for his hostility to President Donald Trump.
O’Donnell, former host of "The Rosie O’Donnell Show" and "The View," began serving as a guest host of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Monday night and will continue through Thursday. She revealed to Variety that she was initially surprised by the move after she and Kimmel had an "adversarial relationship" in the past.
"We’ve never spoken on the phone; we’ve texted a few times. Howard Stern tried to make amends with us, so we’ve been at the same parties a few times and I would talk to his wife. But Jimmy was never a fan of mine, and it was kind of an adversarial relationship — not that I was fighting back, but I was like, ‘OK, one of the bro guys…,’" O’Donnell recalled.
However, after the death of Kimmel's uncle, Frank Potenza, O'Donnell reached out to him and they became more friendly.
"When everything happened with his uncle dying, I wrote him and he wrote back. So, when my publicist called and said, ‘Do you want to guest-host ‘Kimmel’ for a week?’ I said, ‘I haven’t ever even been a guest!’ And then I said, ‘If you’re positive that that’s an actual offer, and he wants me to do it, then I most certainly will,’" she told Variety. "I was surprised, to tell you the truth, and very thankful."
One key aspect that motivated her to guest host was the opportunity to criticize Trump and support Kimmel in his feud with his administration. ABC temporarily suspended Kimmel's show last year after he made controversial comments following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
"I support [Kimmel] in what he’s doing with the First Amendment, and our ability as entertainers and citizens to speak out against our government that’s enshrined in the Founding Fathers’ writings about our government, so I think he’s fantastic," O’Donnell said. "And I wish that Stephen Colbert had the same kind of support when it happened to him, because he shouldn’t be gone either."
On her first night filling in for Kimmel on Monday, O'Donnell used the platform to repeatedly bash Trump, even addressing the president directly during the show.
In her Variety interview, O’Donnell worried that much of the media was in crisis as Paramount pursues its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
"Look at what’s happened to CBS News and ‘60 Minutes,’ which was the gold star of their entire network, and they blew it up. This Bari Weiss person, I don’t know how she can live with herself. There are people who are sidling up to him and history will record all of their names, what they did, and who they stood next to. [I]f you’re in a room with 10 Nazis at a table and you’re the only one who’s not, there’s a pretty good chance you’re a Nazi," she said while discussing the media landscape and the proposed merger.
NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham blasted O’Donnell’s comments.
"Only unintelligent people who don't watch CBS News at all would suggest Bari Weiss has ruined ‘60 Minutes,’ which seemed mostly unchanged last season," he told Fox News Digital. "The idea that this show ‘sidled up’ to Trump last year is ludicrous. Now that some of the angriest Trump-haters have left, you could wonder about next season. But anyone watching CBS News right now can't tell much of a difference between the Weiss era and the pre-Weiss era. Trying to throw Weiss in with her metaphorical Nazis is especially noxious."
On how Kimmel chose O’Donnell as a guest host, Graham offered this explanation: "Rosie seems to be suggesting that she and Kimmel weren't pals until Kimmel realized booking her as a summer co-host was the best kind of anti-Trump trolling."
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Fox News Digital reached out to Bari Weiss and Paramount and did not receive an immediate response.