Rosie O’Donnell Was ‘Surprised’ by Jimmy Kimmel’s Guest-Hosting Offer and Believes a David Ellison-Run CNN Would Be ‘Tragic’

Rosie O’Donnell is finally back behind the talk-show desk.

Yes, the former host of “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” and “The View” will be serving as guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” the week of Aug. 17 while Kimmel is on vacation (as part of his summer rotation). He said he’d tapped O’Donnell for the stint as “a special treat” for Donald Trump, given the president’s 20-year-long vendetta against her for mocking his bankruptcies on “The View.”

O’Donnell tells Variety that the offer “came out of the blue,” since not only have they never spoken in person, but they had what she describes as an “adversarial relationship.”

“We’ve never spoken on the phone; we’ve texted a few times. Howard Stern tried to make amends with us, so we’ve been at the same parties a few times and I would talk to his wife. But Jimmy was never a fan of mine, and it was kind of an adversarial relationship — not that I was fighting back, but I was like, ‘OK, one of the bro guys…,’” O’Donnell recalls.

But that all changed when O’Donnell reached out to Kimmel following the death of his beloved Uncle Frank Potenza, a former NYPD officer…

Original source: https://variety.com/v/tv/