Rosie O’Donnell says ‘scary’ US ‘feels very different’ as she visits from Ireland

Rosie O’Donnell has said the “scary” US “feels very different” when she visited after moving to Ireland. 

O’Donnell has long been a vocal critic of US president Donald Trump and in March last year shared that she is no longer living in the US due to the political upheavals in the country, having moved to Ireland in January just days before Trump’s inauguration.

At the time, O’Donnell said she and Clay (12), her youngest child, are “happy” in Ireland, but admitted to missing life back in the US, lamenting the state of the country’s politics and mainstream media.

O’Donnell opened up about her move to Ireland and her secret return to the US after one year away while speaking to Chris Cuomo on SiriusXM radio show Cuomo Mornings. 

‘I wanted to hold my children again’

The comedian began: “I recently went home for two weeks and I did not really tell anyone. 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.”

O’Donnell continued: “I wanted to hold my children again. And I hadn’t been home in over a year. I also wanted to make sure that it was safe for me before I brought my daughter this summer, where we plan to spend the summertime off from her schooling here with my family.”

The comedian has five children: Parker, Chelsea, Blake, Vivienne and Clay. Parker, Chelsea and Blake were adopted by O’Donnell and her ex-wife Kelli Carpenter, while Vivienne is Carpenter’s biological daughter.

Clay, who is non-binary, was adopted by O’Donnell and her second, now ex-wife, Michelle Rounds.

O’Donnell shared that she has been in New York for the last two weeks, adding: “It feels like a very different country, a very different place to me.”

‘It was scary’

“I’ve been in a place where celebrity worship does not exist. 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. I felt the United States in a completely different way than I ever had before I left,” she explained. 

But she emphasised that she believes she made the right decision in moving to Ireland. 

“I don’t regret leaving at all. I think I 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. There’s a feeling that something is really wrong and no one is doing anything about it.”

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