Rosie O'Donnell Says Her Father Sexually Abused Her When She Was A Child

Rosie O’Donnell recently revealed that her father sexually abused her when she was younger. 

“It started very young,” O’Donnell tells Variety ’s New York bureau chief, Ramin Setoodeh, in his upcoming book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of “The View.”

Her mother died when O’Donnell was 10 years old, and her father, Edward Joseph O’Donnell, died in 2015. The comedian and actress has been very open about her tumultuous childhood, including that she was a victim of child sexual abuse . This is the first time she has publicly stated that the offender was her father.  

“When my mother died, it sort of ended in a weird way, because then he was with these five children to take care of,” O’Donnell continues. “On the whole, it’s not something I like to talk about.”

She adds that child sexual abuse “of course” changes a person, telling Setoodeh, “Any child who is put in that position, especially by someone in the family, you feel completely powerless and stuck, because the person you would tell is the person doing it.”

Head over to Variety to read more.