Rosie O'Donnell swore she would stay out of America as long as Donald Trump was in the White House.
She's now snuck back in twice.
This time she says it was to meet her newborn grandson – and she's promising she'll leave again this weekend.
Rosie O Donnell Moved to Ireland the Week Before Trumps Inauguration
O'Donnell made a dramatic show of fleeing the country when Trump won in 2024.
She packed up her teenage daughter and moved to Dublin on January 15, 2025 – five days before inauguration day.
https://twitter.com/ConservBrief/status/1882062030972064013?s=20
She posted a nearly ten-minute TikTok explaining her decision, declaring she would only return to America when it was "safe for all citizens to have equal rights."
The White House loved it.
Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers issued a one-line response: "Promises made, promises kept. Good riddance."
Trump himself brought it up at an Oval Office meeting with Ireland's Prime Minister – who appeared to have no idea who O'Donnell was – and quipped to the Irish leader, "You are better off not knowing."
But O'Donnell couldn't stay away.
She Quietly Returned to the US in February and Told Nobody
In February 2026, she came back.
"I was recently home for two weeks, and I did not really tell anyone," she told Chris Cuomo on SiriusXM. "I just went to see my family. I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country."
An American citizen born in Commack, New York, protected by the 14th Amendment, spent two weeks in her own country running reconnaissance to see if it was safe to be there.
She told Cuomo she wanted to make sure the country was safe enough to bring her daughter back over the summer for a school break.
Then she came back again this week.
This time, she was responding to an Instagram post claiming she was selling her Irish mansion and planning a permanent return to the United States.
https://twitter.com/iAnonPatriot/status/2039725093853532260?s=20
"TOTAL BULLS**T – I CAME HOME TO MEET MY GRANDSON – GOING BACK THIS WEEKEND," O'Donnell fired back in all-caps.
The Daily Trump Posts From Someone Who Says She Is Not Watching the News
Here's what makes the whole drama genuinely absurd.
O'Donnell has spent 15 months in Ireland producing a near-constant stream of TikTok videos attacking the Trump administration.
Every executive order, every news cycle, every new development – she's reacting to it, ranting about it, posting about it from Dublin.
Earlier this year she told an interviewer she hasn't "been watching the news."
She said this while posting daily video responses to the news.
Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson called her rants "a symptom of late stage TDS."
"She's way too far gone," Jackson said. "Thank goodness she's no longer in the United States."
Trump went further, twice threatening on Truth Social to revoke O'Donnell's citizenship – an act the Constitution doesn't actually permit.
"Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship," Trump wrote in July 2025.
"She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her."
O'Donnell's response was to post a photo of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and type out a message about living rent-free in Trump's brain.
https://twitter.com/Brookltnwilliw/status/2041014101170606363?s=20
This from the woman who has spent the last year building her entire online identity around one man she claims to be done with.
Every Celebrity Who Swore They Would Leave America if Trump Won
This feud started on a daytime talk show in December 2006.
O'Donnell was moderating The View when she unloaded on Trump over his decision not to strip the Miss USA crown from a contestant accused of drug use and underage drinking.
She called him "not a self-made man" and a "snake-oil salesman."
Trump called her "a real loser" and "a woman out of control" and threatened to sue her – a lawsuit that never materialized.
Twenty years later they're still at it, with Trump threatening citizenship revocation from the Oval Office and O'Donnell issuing responses from a Dublin living room.
She has said she plans to stay in Ireland permanently, has applied for Irish citizenship through her grandparents' lineage, and says she's never felt freer.
But she's now visited the United States twice in the last two months.
https://twitter.com/Brookltnwilliw/status/2040255402646921605?s=20
Hollywood has a long, embarrassing tradition of this.
In 2016, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbra Streisand, Amy Schumer, Chelsea Handler and a list of A-listers that stretched to 40 names all swore they'd leave if Trump won.
None of them did.
Handler actually bought a house in Spain to prove she was serious.
She stayed home and blamed her coworkers for talking her out of it.
O'Donnell at least got on the plane.
But a vow to stay away that comes with a baby shower exception and a summer school break exception isn't really a vow.
It's a very expensive extended vacation.
Sources:
- Alana Mastrangelo, "Rosie O'Donnell Returns to U.S. for Second Time After Vowing Not to Come Back While Trump Is in Office," Breitbart News, April 6, 2026.
- "Rosie O'Donnell Returned to the U.S. Following Trump's Citizenship Threat," Fox News, February 14, 2026.
- "Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump's Citizenship Feud Caps Decades of Taunts and Jabs," Fox News, July 15, 2025.
- "Rosie O'Donnell Moves to Ireland, Trump Says Good Riddance," Fox News, March 12, 2025.
- "Inside Rosie O'Donnell's Quiet Life in Ireland After Trump Threatened to Revoke Her Citizenship," Irish Star, March 2026.
