Rosie O’Donnell cannot escape her fixation with President Donald Trump, even after fleeing the United States and moving overseas.
According to a new profile in The Washington Post, the longtime Trump critic is being urged by her own therapist to disconnect from social media after what friends describe as a spiraling obsession.
The comedian reportedly promised her therapist on the day before Thanksgiving that she would go two days without posting about the president. Her vow collapsed within hours. The paper said the pledge “lasted maybe a few hours” before O’Donnell rushed back to her phone.
The therapist, Jeanne Kopetic, confronted her during a recent session. Kopetic pleaded with O’Donnell to break away from Trump.
“Roseann, you’ve got to detach,” she said. The repeated warnings have not helped.
O’Donnell tried the following day. She told her 1.2 million followers that she was “gonna try again to not give him a minute of me.”
Even that attempted sign-off referenced Trump, proving how deeply he occupies her thoughts.
Her friends and family are alarmed. According to the Post, O’Donnell’s fixation has been draining her emotionally for years. The paper reported that her brother Eddie believes leaving the United States was the best decision she ever made.
O’Donnell left America earlier this year after Trump won his second term, as the Daily Mail reported.
She moved to Ireland, claiming she would only return when it was “safe for all citizens to have equal rights.” She settled there with her youngest child, who she says is nonbinary.
Trump still dominates her headspace. The breaking point came when Trump told Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey to be “quiet, piggy.”
O’Donnell erupted online, accusing the White House press corps of letting Trump verbally “rape” a journalist.
The feud dates back to 2006, when O’Donnell mocked Trump on “The View” over his handling of a Miss USA scandal.
Trump responded during a 2015 GOP debate, brushing off criticism of how he spoke about women by saying he was “only” referring to her.
O’Donnell now spends her days posting angry memes about Trump. She has accused him of being a criminal, an abuser and a threat to the country. Some of her posts portray him with the phrase “He rapes.”
She admits her own child has absorbed her rage. O’Donnell told CNN’s Jim Acosta that her 12-year-old, who has autism, slammed their fist on a table while yelling, “Damn him. Damn Trump.” O’Donnell said the move to Ireland was “for our own safety.”
Trump has continued to criticize her publicly. He called her “not a Great American” and twice threatened to revoke her U.S. citizenship. He posted that she is “a Threat to Humanity.”
O’Donnell says Ireland has given her peace. She praised the country as “loving and kind.” Yet even in what she calls “self-imposed exile,” she remains consumed by the president she claims to fear.
Trump joked with Ireland’s leader that he was “better off not knowing who she was.” O’Donnell insisted on Irish TV that she took it personally. She said Trump has used her as a punchline “for 20 years.”
