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Rosie O’Donnell said in a recent interview on the “The Jann Arden Podcast” (via HuffPo) that ABC blocked her from having Jeffrey Epstein survivors on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” during her guest hosting stint in August. O’Donnell ended
up filming a videowith the survivors that she posted directly to Instagram instead.
“My idea for the last night [hosting ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!] was to do the Epstein reveal and they said that they were certain that could not happen,” O’Donnell told the podcast hosts. “So I said I would do it myself and just put it out on [my own social media]… there were eight woman. We met and I told them about my history and why it means so much to me and the human race and why this is a vital importance. I thanked them for trusting me. We shot it in a few hours, two hours we shot the whole thing.”
Variety has reached out to ABC representatives for comment.
In the video posted to Instagram, O’Donnell joined the Epstein survivors as they all sang a rendition of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” together. She told the survivors: “I know it’s been very hard for you and with very little support. And I’m sorry that our country is so fucked up that this is what you have to live through, because you are all heroes. And you’re going to change how the world deals with child sex abuse.”
“After the corrupt AG (Trump’s former personal lawyer) stated no men would be charged in the Epstein files — despite mountains of evidence — I called some Epstein survivors [and] asked them to sing with me a powerful Helen Reddy song that taught me at 10 years old to use my voice,” O’Donnell wrote in her caption of the video.
O’Donnell guest hosted four episodes of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” during the week of Aug. 17. She dropped the Epstein survivors video on Instagram a few weeks later on Sept. 3. She did not reveal why the network blocked her pitch to have the Epstein survivors on the show, although things have gotten contentious between ABC and Trump’s FCC in the last few months. ABC sued the FCC last month, alleging the commission was waging an “extraordinary assault” on its free-speech rights by threatening to pull licenses for its eight owned-and-operated local TV stations. The FCC then asked a federal court to disdmiss the lawsuit.
Earlier this month, Kimmel announced he was pulling an on-air interview with James Talarico, the Texan Democrat running for the U.S. Senate. The chat between the two did not air on television and was instead uploaded directly to YouTube, where it earned 5 million views in 24 hours. Kimmel cited threats from the FCC against ABC’s affiliate stations as the reason for the decision.
Watch O’Donnell’s full interview on the “The Jann Arden Podcast” in the video below.
