Rosie O’Donnell has had enough of America. The actor and comedian recently revealed on TikTok that she moved to Ireland, with no immediate plans to return to the US: “When it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back.”
In a nine-minute TikTok, the 62-year-old shared that she moved abroad in mid-January with her youngest child, 12-year-old Dakota, whose nickname is Clay. “Although I was never someone who thought I would move to another country, that’s what I decided would be the best for myself and my 12-year-old child,” she said. A mother of five, O’Donnell has four other adult children—Parker, 29; Chelsea, 27; Blake, 25; and Vivienne, 22—who did not make the move with their mother and younger sibling.
“I’m happy. Clay is happy. I miss my other kids. I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home,” she said. “I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country.” O’Donnell added that she was in the process of being granted Irish citizenship, which she is eligible for because her grandparents were born in the country.
The former cohost of The View suggested that Donald Trump’s administration and policies were the impetus for her leaving the country. “It’s been heartbreaking to see what’s happening politically and hard for me personally as well. The personal is political, as we all know,” she said. She’s not the only celebrity to leave the States since Trump was reelected: Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi moved to the UK after Trump’s second electoral victory, putting their Montecito house on the market and setting up shop in the Cotswolds.
In November, Eva Longoria revealed that she and her family were splitting time between Spain and Mexico, telling Marie Claire that most Americans are “going to be stuck in this dystopian country, and my anxiety and sadness is for them.” Longoria clarified her remarks a few days later in a phone call to Ana Navarro on The View’s podcast, saying that she did not leave the country because of Trump’s reelection. “Will you please let them know I didn’t move out of the United States because of Trump?” said Longoria. “I’ve been in Europe for almost three years…. I didn’t leave because of the political environment. I left because my work took me there.”
Richard Gere also moved to Spain in November with his Spanish wife, Alejandra Silva, and their children. But for him, too, the move wasn’t explicitly Trump-related. The couple sold their $10.8 million Connecticut home to relocate so that Silva could be closer to her family. “For Alejandra, it will be wonderful to be closer to her family, her lifelong friends, and her culture,” Gere told Vanity Fair España at the time. “She was very generous in giving me six years living in my world, so it is only fair that I give her at least another six living in hers.”
O’Donnell was also one of the many celebrities impacted by the California fires earlier this year, losing her Malibu beachfront property. She said life so far in Ireland has been “pretty wonderful” and that she’s already begun making friends, including a “wonderful” man named Tom who has been showing her “around Dublin.” Although she’s left the US, O’Donnell will still be working stateside from time to time. This year she’ll guest star as Mary on the new season of HBO’s And Just Like That…, which films in New York.
She ended her TikTok with a message advising her followers to protect their peace however they could. “Protect your sanity, is all I can say. Protect your sanity as much as you can, and try not to swim in the chaos if possible,” she said. “But I know it’s nearly impossible when you’re there in the middle of it.”
