
Rosie O’Donnell will soon return to the airwaves once again.
Jimmy Kimmel revealed that the comedian will be among the celebrities who guest host Jimmy Kimmel Live during his break from the show this summer.
“I will be taking the next two months off — this time voluntarily,” Kimmel said in Thursday’s monologue on the show, a cheeky reference to ABC pulling the talk show from the air for six days in September.
The late night host went on to list several of the entertainers who will step in for hosting duties over the course of the summer. “We have assembled a potent group of hosts to fill in for me, beginning with Tiffany Haddish, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson, [and] Jelly Roll,” he said.
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Kimmel then gave O’Donnell a shoutout. “As a special treat for our commander-in-chief, I asked one of his all-time favorites, Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming,” he said. “So, you’re welcome. And all I ask in return, Mr. President, is that you don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”
A representative for O’Donnell tells EW that the comedian will host Jimmy Kimmel Live for one week of episodes beginning on Monday, August 17.
EW has reached out to representatives for Jimmy Kimmel Live for more information.
O’Donnell shared a screenshot of a link to a PEOPLE story about her guest hosting stint on Instagram on Friday. “And I can’t wait !!!” she wrote in the caption.
Kimmel was being sarcastic when he referred to O’Donnell as one of President Trump’s “all-time favorites.” The commander-in-chief and the former moderator for The View have traded jabs in a feud that has lasted for decades.
It all began in 2006 when Trump publicly criticized that year’s winner of the Miss USA pageant, Tara Conner, which led to O’Donnell defending her on The View and calling the Apprentice star a “snake-oil salesman on Little House On The Prairie.”
Trump then shared numerous posts slamming O’Donnell on social media in the early 2010s before launching his presidential campaign, while O’Donnell criticized Trump during her tenure on The View.
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“Probably the Trump stuff was the most bullying I ever experienced in my life, including as a child,” O’Donnell said in 2014. “It was national, and it was sanctioned societally. Whether I deserved it is up to your own interpretation.”
Trump later lashed out at O’Donnell during a Republican presidential debate in 2015. When moderator Megyn Kelly asked him about calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” on Twitter, the future president replied, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
Once Trump became president, O’Donnell shared her fears for the nation and for herself. “I seriously worry whether I personally will be able to live through [his presidency] and whether the nation will be able to live through it and survive,” she told W Magazine in 2017. “It’s a terrifying concept, on the brink of nuclear war with a madman in charge.”
O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Trump was elected to his second term. Trump later threatened to revoke her U.S. citizenship.
The comedian recently returned to the U.S. for the Tony Awards, where she called the president an “a–hole” and a “psychopath.”
O’Donnell will soon bring her one-woman show Common Knowledge to New York City in July. She previously performed the show in Dublin, Sydney, and Edinburgh.


