Rosie O’Donnell revealed she secretly traveled to the United States after leaving the country amid Donald Trump’s second term as president.
“I was recently home for two weeks and I did not really tell anyone,” O’Donnell, 63, said after calling into SiriusXM’s Cuomo Mornings on Friday, February 13. “I just went to see my family. I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country. I wanted to feel what it felt like. I wanted to hold my children again. And I hadn’t been home in over a year.”
O’Donnell relocated to Ireland in January 2025, just days before Trump’s second presidential inauguration.
“[I’m] in the process of getting my Irish citizenship, as I have Irish grandparents,” the former TV host explained via Instagram in March 2025. “And that’s what’s going on, and that’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. And although I was never someone who thought I would move to another country, that’s what I decided would be best for myself and my 12-year-old child. And here we are.”
Months later, President Trump threatened to use his presidential powers to revoke O’Donnell’s citizenship. (According to political scholars, the president does not have the power to strip a U.S. citizen of their legal status.)
“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump claimed via Truth Social in July 2025. “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
O’Donnell replied to the president’s threat via Instagram.
“The president of the USA has always hated the fact that I see him for who he is — a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself. This is why I moved to Ireland.” (Trump, who is allegedly named in the Epstein files more than a million times and has been accused of sexual abuse and/or harassment by over a two dozen women, has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.)
On Friday, O’Donnell reiterated that she has no regrets about her decision to leave the United States for Ireland amid Trump’s second presidential term.
“I have to tell you, it feels like a very different country, a very different place to me because for a year I haven’t been watching the news,” she said. “I haven’t been watching American culture television. I’ve been in a place where celebrity worship does not exist. I’ve been in a place where there’s more balance to the news. There’s more balance to live. It’s not everyone trying to get more, more, more. It’s a very different culture. And I felt the United States in a completely different way than I ever had before I left.”
She continued, “So I don’t regret leaving at all. I think I did what I needed to do to save myself, my child, and my sanity. And I’m very happy that I’m not in the midst of it there because the energy that I felt while in the United States was, if I could use the most simple word I can think of, it was scary. There’s a feeling that something is really wrong and no one is doing anything about it.”
