Rosie O’Donnell tells Jesse Watters to ‘stay out of my orbit’ before roasting Trump on Kimmel

Rosie O’Donnell was getting her hair done when she delivered a blunt message to Fox News host Jesse Watters: Leave her alone.

In a widely shared TikTok video posted on August 6, the out comedian said Watters’s production team had approached her outside the New York theater where she was performing her autobiographical show, Common Knowledge.

“So here’s what I want to say to Jesse Watters and his gang of unruly reporter yellers at the theater today,” O’Donnell said. “No, I don’t want to speak or answer a question from Jesse Watters.”

O’Donnell said that a Fox crew waited for her to get out of her car, then rushed toward her shouting that Watters wanted to talk.

“I’ve never watched Jesse Watters, and I don’t ever care to,” she said. “I’ve read enough about what he said about women and who he is.”

Watters built his career conducting interviews for The O’Reilly Factor. More recently, his commentary has repeatedly targeted women and LGBTQ+ people.

In July, The Advocate reported that Watters laughed while warning women to “be careful” around troops who might take testosterone under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s proposed initiative, suggesting the men would become “wild animals.”

Last year, Watters dismissed concerns about Andry Hernandez Romero, an innocent gay Venezuelan asylum seeker imprisoned in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT torture prison. “Come on. It’s just a gay barber,” he said. He has also called LGBTQ+ people “nuts” for buying guns amid fears of anti-LGBTQ+ violence.

“Jesse, you do what you do,” O’Donnell said. “Stay out of my orbit.”

She added that Watters could contact her publicist if he wanted an interview. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I just have no interest in you in any capacity.”

The video resurfaced as O’Donnell began a four-night stint as guest host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week. Returning to an American talk show desk after moving to Ireland following President Donald Trump’s reelection, she immediately revived their nearly 20-year feud.

O’Donnell called Trump “Mango Mussolini,” warned viewers to “buckle up,” and stared into the camera.

“Hi,” she told the president. “I know you’re watching.”