Touching on their increasingly incendiary public feud, comedian Rosie O’Donnell explained over the weekend why Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is giving any thought to her, a past-her-prime entertainer who no longer lives in the United States.
“I am proud to be opposed to every single thing he says and does,” O’Donnell told Irish broadcaster RTÉ Radio 1 Sunday, after Trump threatened to take away her U.S. citizenship, the Daily Beast reported. While O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Trump was re-elected in November, Trump would be prohibited from taking away her citizenship by the 14th Amendment.
“It’s because we grew up in the same area. I think I remind him of all the kids at school who never liked him,” O’Donnell said. “I’m a tough New York tomboy girl — and I think his crap never flew with me or New Yorkers.”
Both Trump and O’Donnell were raised in the New York metropolitan area, with the president growing up in Queens.
After Trump called O’Donnell “a threat to humanity” and said she should remain in Ireland, O’Donnell promptly clapped back, writing on Instagram, “You’re rattled again? 18 years later and I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours.”
In a lengthy missive with her own unique style of punctuation, she also said. “I’m everything you fear: a loud woman a queer woman a mother who tells the truth an American who got out of the country b4 u set it ablaze.”
As for his threat to revoke her citizenship, O’Donnell said, “Go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan.” O’Donnell was referring to Joffrey, the entitled, petulant, cruel and sociopathic young king in “Game of Thrones.”
O’Donnell told CNN in April that she had moved to Ireland because she felt that Trump’s return to power in the White House meant, “it was time for me and my non-binary child to leave the country.” O’Donnell’s 12-year-old, Clay, is non-binary and has autism. She said they thought they should leave the United States before Trump “was inaugurated.”
Trump and O’Donnell have been trading insults on and off for nearly two decades, going back to when she was a co-host on “The View” in 2006, according to the Daily Beast. She questioned him being any kind of “moral authority” during the 2006 Miss USA controversy about underage drinking and substance use. Trump formerly owned the Miss USA pageant. O’Donnell, moreover, said that Trump was not a “self-made man.” Indeed, a 2018 New York Times investigation showed that he inherited a $413 million real estate empire — in today’s dollars — from his father, Fred Trump and that he helped his parents dodge taxes.
Trump subsequently called O’Donnell “a loser” in 2011. During a 2015 GOP presidential debate, Trump also was asked by moderator Megyn Kelly about previously calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” He replied, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
On Sunday, the White House’s “Rapid Response” communications team shared a clip of Trump calling O’Donnell “a mess,” while speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
Trump was asked about O’Donnell’s comments last month on Chris Cuomo’s podcast. She told the journalist that she felt depressed after Trump’s 2016 election victory, leading her to “overdrinking” and “overeating.”
“Rosie’s a mess. She’s a mess, but she left our country — which is a good thing, not a bad thing,” Trump said.