Rosie O’Donnell wasn’t at her daughter’s college graduation over concerns of attacks by Donald Trump amid her public feud with the president.
The comedian, who is scheduled to tour Australia for the first time next month, opened up about missing the ceremony during a recent interview with Kate Langbroke for the No Filter podcast. “My daughter graduated college and I didn’t go back because the security people said to me they didn’t think it was wise,” the former Rosie O’Donnell Show host said of her daughter Vivienne who graduated from college earlier this year. “Because I think Trump will use me to rile his base.”
The comic did not specify what type of security personnel had warned her. A representative for O’Donnell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Back in July, Trump threatened to revoke her citizenship. Trump said that O’Donnell “is not in the best interests of our Great Country” and “I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her.”
O’Donnell, who has long been critical of Trump and moved to Ireland after his re-election, fired back at the threat in a lengthy message to the president that she posted on Instagram, alongside a photo of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
“You call me a threat to humanity – but 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,” O’Donnell wrote at the time. “You are everything that is wrong with America.”
In an interview with Ireland’s RTE at the time, O’Donnell said she “didn’t take [Trump’s attack] personally,” as the president is frequently picking fights with celebrities like her. O’Donnell has continued to be vocal about her contempt for Trump and his administration on social media.
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O’Donnell added on the new podcast that the first Trump administration “created a lot of problems” for her, with people confronting her on the street and in front of her child Clay, who was five years old at the time. “[Trump’s] ability to denigrate people and dismiss them and humiliate them encouraged other people to do the same,” she said.
From Rolling Stone US