Rosie O’Donnell admits secret return to US to ‘see if it was safe’ after Trump citizenship threat
Rosie O’Donnell has revealed she secretly returned to the United States to test the waters after President Trump threatened to revoke her citizenship following her move to Ireland last year.
The 63-year-old former talk show host announced in March 2025 that she had relocated to Ireland following Trump’s second inauguration, saying she felt unsafe under his leadership and concerned for her family’s wellbeing.
The move came amid a long-standing feud with Trump, dating back to her days as a co-host on The View. In July, the former president publicly threatened to strip O’Donnell of her citizenship.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s Cuomo Mornings on Friday, O’Donnell revealed that she had quietly returned to the U.S. for a short visit.
‘I recently went home for two weeks and I did not really tell anyone. I just went to see my family,’ she said.
‘I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country. I wanted to feel what it felt like.’
Rosie O’Donnell has revealed she secretly returned to the United States to test the waters after President Trump threatened to revoke her citizenship following her move to Ireland last year; (pictured 20240
The former talk show host announced in March 2025 that she had relocated to Ireland following Donald Trump’s second inauguration; (Trump in February)
She told Cuomo, ‘I wanted to hold my children again.’
The mother of five left the US in January 2025 with her youngest, Clay, while her four older children – Parker, 29, Blake, 25, Chelsea, 27, and Vivienne, 22 – remained in America.
‘And I hadn’t been home in over a year,’ O’Donnell said. ‘I also wanted to make sure that it was safe for me before I brought my daughter this summer, where we plan to spend the summertime off from her schooling here with my family.’
The star added that one of her adult sons is expecting his first child, leaving her ‘very excited to be home.’
She spent the two-week visit in New York and described it as ‘a very different country.’
‘[It’s] a very different place for me because, for a year, I haven’t been watching the news. I haven’t been watching American culture television. I’ve been in a place where celebrity worship does not exist,’ she said, noting that her new life in Ireland provides ‘more balance.’
‘I don’t regret leaving at all,’ O’Donnell said. ‘I think I did what I needed to do to save myself, my child and my sanity.’
She also admitted the energy she felt in the US was unsettling.
‘I recently went home for two weeks and I did not really tell anyone. I just went to see my family,’ O’Donnell said, adding, ‘I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country. I wanted to feel what it felt like’
‘I don’t regret leaving at all,’ O’Donnell said, adding, ‘I think I did what I needed to do to save myself, my child and my sanity’
‘The energy that I felt while in the United States… it was scary,’ she said. ‘There’s a feeling that something is really wrong and no one is doing anything about it.’
Despite her move abroad, Trump posted in July 2025 that he was ‘giving serious consideration’ to revoking her US citizenship.
‘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,’ he wrote.
‘She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!’
O’Donnell fired back on Instagram, writing, ‘The president of the USA has always hated the fact that I see him for who he is – a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself.’
‘This is why I moved to Ireland,’ she continued. ‘He is a dangerous old soulless man with dementia who lacks empathy, compassion and basic humanity – I stand in direct opposition [to] all he represents, so do millions of others.’
Meanwhile, O’Donnell has also been candid about her dramatic weight loss since moving to Ireland.
The 63-year-old revealed she has shed a significant amount of weight while taking the diabetes medication Mounjaro, crediting it as a major factor in her transformation.
‘I’ve lost more weight here. I am on Mounjaro for my diabetes and one of the side effects is you lose weight,’ she joked in a TikTok video.
The former Rosie O’Donnell Show host also shared her astonishment at her slimmer figure amid the health change.
‘I’m one of those people who’s always had a weight issue and now that I’m a size large, instead of an XL or a XXL, I find it shocking. I really do. I find it completely shocking,’ she said.
