Rosie Tells Oprah: I'm Not So Angry Anymore

Rosie O'Donnell confesses to Oprah Winfrey that she's not so angry anymore, in an interview undoubtedly intended to promote a new television show on Winfrey's network from the lesbian comedian, actress, and talk show host.

"You know, I think I had a lot more rage than I was aware of," O'Donnell says in the October issue of  O, The Oprah Magazine. "But I've gotten back access to my other feelings. I'm not cut off from my emotions anymore ... The rage has gone away ... There's been a healing."

Although O'Donnell was known as "The Queen of Nice" during her daytime talk show's heyday, the devoted mom of four actually struggled with a lot fury for years, according to the interview.

"I had, like, zero estrogen," O'Donnell reveals. "And since I got some, I've been able to function more normally. I've stopped being so angry."

O'Donnell, who famously wed partner Kelli Carpenter in San Francisco in 2004, discusses picking up the pieces after their divorce in 2007.

She calls the experience, "Humbling. And humiliating ... In the O'Donnell family, no one had ever been divorced."

Ultimately it was their different lifestyles that drove the couple apart, O'Donnell says.

"She wanted to play tennis at the country club, and I don't do country clubs. I tried," O'Donnell says. "They made an exception for a gay family, and we joined. It was a big thing: 'They let in a gay family -- whoo!' So I show up to play with her, and somebody comes out and says, 'You can't play unless you have tennis whites.'"

As O'Donnell settles in with her large family in Chicago to prep for her new show on OWN, she calls it "a new beginning for me. For the first time in a long time, I'm excited."

Oprah says she's bringing on someone whose success she can count on.

"In 25 years of doing my show only one competitor ever seriously challenged me in the ratings: Rosie O'Donnell," Winfrey says. "From the day Rosie took her place among the crowded field of talk show hosts, I knew she had the 'It' thing."