Moment Ellen DeGeneres sparked near-20-year feud with Rosie O’Donnell

A comedian and former talk show host has opened up about her infamous falling out with former friend Ellen DeGeneres in a new interview.

Ellen on the Larry King show, 2004.

Comedian and former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell has opened up about her infamous falling out with former friend Ellen DeGeneres in a new interview.

With her usual frankness, O’Donnell told The Hollywood Reporter that she used to have a close friendship with DeGeneres back in the 1990s, but felt burned after Ellen appeared to distance herself from her during a 2004 appearance on The Larry King Show.

Of their tension, O’Donnell said: “I don’t know if it’s jealousy, competition or the fact that she said a mean thing about me once that really hurt my feelings.”

Rosie O'Donnell (left) and Ellen DeGeneres. Picture: Getty Images/FOX

The appearance came when DeGeneres’ career was on an upswing. Her talk show had revived her career fortunes after her 90s sitcom was cancelled after both she and the character she played came out as gay.

O’Donnell’s own talk show had finished up in 2002, the same year she came out as gay.

“Larry King said, ‘Whatever happened to Rosie O’Donnell’s show? She went down the tubes as soon as she came out’,” O’Donnell recalled to The Hollywood Reporter.

“And the quote that Ellen said was, ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.’ I was watching TV in bed with my wife going, ‘Did she just say that?’”

Footage of that particular moment from the interview is not online, however a transcript on the CNN website reveals the context and DeGeneres’ exact words.

Ellen’s infamous appearance on The Larry King show, 2004.

Asked by King “what had happened” with O’Donnell’s talk show, DeGeneres said: “I don’t know. You know, maybe she didn’t … I don’t really know Rosie that well. I mean, I’ve spoken to her, but we’re not really friends. We don’t, like … so I don’t really know and I couldn’t say what her …”

O’Donnell insisted that, before DeGeneres’ Larry King interview, the pair had in fact been so close that they knew each other’s families. She said DeGeneres had “held her babies when they were born.”

“I could identify her brother without her in the room. I knew her for so many years. It just felt like I don’t trust this person to be in my world,” she told THR.

O’Donnell had DeGeneres as a guest on her talk show in 1996, when speculation about Ellen’s sexuality was at a fever pitch, and the pair engaged in some cheeky banter about Ellen coming out as “Lebanese” – O’Donnell knowingly quipped that “I could be Lebanese myself.” She said that despite not being out at the time, she wanted to show her support for her friend.

Rosie had Ellen as a guest on her talk show in 1996, to have fun with the speculation about Ellen's sexuality.

But O’Donnell says that when DeGeneres took over her mantle as one of the queens of daytime television, her request to appear as a guest on Ellen’s show was denied. She never appeared on Ellen during the show’s two decades on-air.

O’Donnell said she got a text from Ellen after she opened up about the rift during an appearance on Andy Cohen’s talk show Watch What Happens Live last year. She said it read: “I’m really sorry and I don’t remember that.”

She says since then, the pair have texted as recently as a few weeks ago to check in with each other, but that there is still “weirdness” between them.