Earlier this year, we reported that the comedian Rosie O’Donnell had fled the United States to move to Ireland. Now, O’Donnell is reemerging to launch a shockingly vile attack on the former Tonight Show host Jay Leno.
O’Donnell Blasts Leno
O’Donnell, 63, took to Instagram on Tuesday to post her reaction to the new Netflix docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser. This docuseries chronicles the history of the former NBC reality television show The Biggest Loser.
O’Donnell took issue with Leno, 75, for the way that he treated contestants on the weight loss reality TV show.
“Jay Leno is a mean [expletive] #biggestloserdocumentary,” O’Donnell wrote in the caption of her post.
O’Donnell wrote this alongside a photo of The Biggest Loser season 8 contestant Tracey Yukich during a confessional. She included a second slide in which Yukich was interviewed by Leno on The Tonight Show.
In the Netflix docuseries, Yukich claimed that she was harassed after appearing on The Tonight Show. She also recalled Leno reading death threats to her on live television.
Leno Rips Politicization Of Late Night
O’Donnell likely isn’t Leno’s biggest fan right now, given his recent comments slamming the liberal bias of modern late night. Indeed, Leno lamented just how politicized late night has become while being interviewed by David Trulio, the president and CEO of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
“I read that there was an analysis done of your work on The Tonight Show for the 22 years and that your jokes were roughly equally balanced between going after Republicans and taking aim at Democrats. Did you have a strategy?” asked Trulio.
“It was fun to me when I got hate letters [like] ‘Dear Mr. Leno, you and your Republican friends’ and ‘Well, Mr. Leno, I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy’ — over the same joke,” responded Leno, 75.
‘And I go, ’Well, that’s good,'” he added. “That’s how you get a whole audience.”
Leno went on to talk about just how much late night has changed in recent years amidst a political landscape that is more divisive than ever.
“Now you have to be content with half the audience because you have [to] give your opinion,” Leno lamented.
Leno went on to highlight what a bad idea it is to alienate a large portion of the audience with politics.
“Well, why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole [audience],” Leno concluded. “I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture. I don’t understand why you would alienate one particular group, you know, or just don’t do it at all. I’m not saying you have to throw your support or whatever, but just do what’s funny.”
O’Donnell’s Anti-Trump Obsession
Of course, this didn’t sit well with O’Donnell, as she claims to have fled America to escape Donald Trump. In O’Donnell’s radically liberal mind, all of television should be politicized in the left’s favor.
O’Donnell shocked the world when she fled the U.S. and moved to Ireland with her 12 year-old child Clay back in January. Back in June, O’Donnell admitted to the former CNN host Chris Cuomo that she fled America because of Donald Trump’s presidential victory. She even described this move as being one of “self-preservation,” since she greatly struggled during Trump’s first presidency.
“During his first go-round, it was very difficult, and I got myself into some bad places,” said O’Donnell. “You know, I was very, very depressed. I was overeating, I was overdrinking. I was so depressed, Chris.”
In a May interview, O’Donnell claimed to have no regrets about making this move.
“Never, for one moment since I arrived here, did I regret my choice,” O’Donnell told Variety at the time. “People have been so welcoming, so accepting, and they have a different view of celebrity in the culture here. They are not prioritized over other people.”
In another video posted to TikTok, however, O’Donnell admitted that “it’s not easy moving to another country.”
Watch O’Donnell talk more about that in the video below.
O’Donnell can bash Leno all that she wants to, but he’s still far more popular than the radically liberal late night hosts of today. In the end, this serves as a reminder that America is likely better off without O’Donnell in it.
Good riddance, Rosie O’Donnell!