Rosie O’Donnell Says Donald Trump’s Bullying Was The Worst ‘The View’ Host Ever Experienced
The View co-host Rosie O’Donnell revealed a lot more than her dramatic weight loss this week. O’Donnell, who recently lost more than 50 pounds, tells People that the worst bullying she ever experienced in her life was done by business tycoon Donald Trump.
Rosie suffered a heart attack in 2012 and underwent vertical gastric sleeve surgery last year to help her lose weight and save her life. Aside from the health benefits and her notably slimmer figure, O’Donnell tells People that she hopes her weight loss will help reduce the bullying she “fell victim to” when Donald Trump started calling her out on Twitter a few years ago, something he started to do again this year when she was re-hired by ABC to co-host The View.
“Probably the Trump stuff was the most bullying I ever experienced in my life, including as a child. It was national, and it was sanctioned societally. Whether I deserved it is up to your own interpretation.”
When Trump found out O’Donnell, who left The View in 2007, was returning to the show, he immediately took to Twitter to bash her again, calling her “crude, rude, obnoxious and dumb.”
Rosie is crude, rude, obnoxious and dumb – other than that I like her very much!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2014
His nasty tweets didn’t stop there. He also tweeted that The View was “desperate” to hire O’Donnell and called the move a “long term disaster.”
Rosie is back on the View which tells you how desperate they must be. It is the standard short term fix and long term disaster.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2014
The Apprentice host spoke with The New York Daily News last July about O’Donnell’s return to the talk show, stating that bringing her back will have a “short term positive impact” but it won’t end well because “Rosie always self-destructs.”
“I think she’s got a great agent – anyone with so many failures that can go back again and again is amazing to me. It’s very sad after the catastrophe that took place when she quit after she was mentally beaten up by Elisabeth (Hasselbeck). Her show on OWN was a catastrophe, Barbara (Walters) hates her.”
Rosie O’Donnell is trying to brush off Trump’s bullying by putting her time into projects that help others. Earlier this week, she attended an event for Rosie’s Theater Kids with her son, Parker. The non-profit performing arts organization helps low-income kids find opportunities in the arts, a project that is near and dear to Rosie’s heart.
Rosie O’Donnell was inspired to help others by a former teacher who “who loved me back to life, who told me I was worthy and important and good” shortly after she lost her mother. She decided to pay it forward years later by using her success to help children in need, telling People, “When I got to a point where I knew I could do that for other kids, that’s what I did.”
[Images: Twitter, SodaHead.com, The Daily Mail]
