Rosie O'Donnell Reveals The Public And 'Most Painful' Way Ellen DeGeneres Ended Their Friendship

Perhaps no star has had a fall from grace quite like the one that came for Ellen DeGeneres.

After rising to a household name in the '90s she was blackballed for coming out as gay on her sitcom.

Then after rising back to prominence as the zany, uplifting host of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she faced scandal once again in 2021 for allegations of workplace bullying from former employees.

But new comments from fellow comedian Rosie O'Donnell indicate that the cruelty of which DeGeneres has been accused may go way further back than that.

In a recent appearance on the aptly titled No Filter podcast, O'Donnell revealed the shocking moment that DeGeneres denied their friendship on live television in 2004, during a time of controversy surround O'Donnell coming out as a lesbian.

As lesbian comics at a time when out LGBTQ celebrities were even rarer than they are today, O'Donnell and DeGeneres traveled in the same circles for years as their careers grew.

O'Donnell came out during a comedy set in 2002, a controversial thing for a celebrity to do at the time. O'Donnell told No Filter's Kate Langbroek that her coming out landed her "in the [same] position" DeGeneres found herself in when she came out in 1997 and was stripped of her TV show for doing so.

But rather than stick up for her as O'Donnell had done for DeGeneres in the '90s, DeGeneres denied the 30-year friendship she and O'Donnell had during a 2004 appearance on Larry King Live.

O'Donnell said:

"Instead of deciding to stand next to me and hold my hand, which is what I did to her, she did the opposite."

"That was, like, one of the most painful things that ever happened to me, in show business, in my life."

"I couldn't believe it. I have photos of her holding my newborn babies. I knew her for 30 years."

On social media, O'Donnell's comments renewed scrutiny about the allegations against DeGeneres.

The two had seemed to have mended fences, however. In 2023, O'Donnell said that DeGeneres had reached out to her apologize, though she claimed she didn't remember the comments.

More recently, DeGeneres stood up for O'Donnell when Donald Trump threatened to strip her of her citizenship for criticizing his administration following her recent relocation to Ireland.