Rosie O'Donnell is suddenly open to leaving Ireland for New York after Democrats swept the midterms, a turn from her long vow to stay away while President Trump holds power.
The comedian told the Washington Post in a Thursday Zoom that she is now thinking about a move back to New York, after Democrats delivered what the report described as crushing blows to Republicans and took majorities in both houses of Congress.
Breitbart News reported that O'Donnell had gone to bed in Dublin before the races were called Tuesday night, then woke around 3 a.m. to her phone lighting up with results, saw the outcome, and started to cry before sipping a celebratory Smithwick's.
O'Donnell still called Ireland beautiful. She also made plain that her family is not there.
She said she misses her grown kids and a grandson born six months ago, and that she feels she has already missed half his life and does not want to miss more.
"beautiful, we love it here, but my family’s not here,"
she told the Post, adding:
"And I miss my grown kids. I miss my grandson that was born six months ago. And I feel like I’ve missed half his life already and don’t want to miss any more."
She had previously said she moved across the Atlantic for her 12-year-old daughter, who has autism. That same daughter is now part of the political talk inside the house.
O'Donnell described the girl saying “D*** him, d*** Trump” and smashing her hand on the table, then explaining that Trump “made us move in order for our own safety, and now he’s destroying the country!”
For years O'Donnell had repeated that she would never return from her self-imposed exile in Ireland while President Donald Trump remains in control. The midterm night changed the tone of her public comments.
In a 2025 appearance on the Jim Acosta Show she had framed her stance as standing in defiance of Trump. In the Post Zoom she walked that back.
"Whatever this thing is, of me thinking that I have to somehow stand in defiance of him. No, no, I don’t, somebody can tap me out, you know?"
She continued:
"I did 22 years, I don’t really need to do any more, and I don’t want my kid to be so affected by it, and, you know, she has autism,"
and said she does not want to “give this” to her daughter by keeping the fight going in front of her.
So the same Trump presidency she once treated as a permanent bar to coming home is still in place. What shifted, in her account, was a Democratic sweep on Capitol Hill, a missed grandson, and a child repeating the adult political script at the kitchen table.
Celebrity exile was always a choice with a return ticket. Voters who stayed and took the hits do not get the same soft landing when the map flips.
