Late last year, Rosie O'Donnell revealed on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that her feelings were hurt when Ellen DeGeneres denied their friendship on Larry King Live back in 1998.
DeGeneres was asked by King about O'Donnell's show's decline after her coming out.
DeGeneres responded:
“I don’t know Rosie; we’re not friends.”
At the time O'Donnell was shocked.
"I was watching TV in bed with my wife going, “Did she just say that?”
But recently, O'Donnell shared with The Hollywood Reporter that DeGeneres recently texted her and apologized.
"She wrote, 'I’m really sorry and I don’t remember that.'"
"I guess she saw me talk about it on Andy Cohen’s show. I remembered it so well, I had T-shirts printed and I gave them to my staff that said 'I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.'"
"I have a picture of her holding [my then-infant son] Parker. I know her mother. I could identify her brother without her in the room."
"I knew her for so many years. It just felt like I don’t trust this person to be in my world."
People on social media sympathized with O'Donnell for being upset in the moment.
And sadly, many were not surprised by DeGeneres' behavior.
While DeGeneres did reach out to O'Donnell, "checking in," O'Donnell admits there's still some "weirdness."
"But we’ve had our weirdness in our relationship. I don’t know if it’s jealousy, competition or the fact that she said a mean thing about me once that really hurt my feelings."
"It would never occur to me to say 'I don’t know her' about somebody whose babies I held when they were born."
"It wouldn’t be in my lexicon of choices to ever say. When she was in a perplexing situation and people were saying things about her, I said, 'Let me stand next to you and say that I’m Lebanese, too.'"
"When it was a downward media time for me, she didn’t do anything."
We can definitely see why she would feel hurt.
@trew_808/TikTok
@madisonleanne8/TikTok
@nanaonakawa/TikTok
@llamalexa/TikTok
@hisgirlfriday5/TikTok
@jblair1118/TikTok
@jaylauscher/X
@ChrisPorter22/X