The Rosie O’Donnell Show premiered in 1996, and the daytime talk show continued until 2002. Nearly 2,000 episodes of the show aired during its run, but Rosie O’Donnell surprised fans by choosing to walk away while it was still a big hit.
O’Donnell, 64, explained what drove her decision to quit her talk show when she did. She told Page Six that her decision came after learning she had $100 million in the bank. “When I heard that, I thought, OK, now I’m done.'”
She recalled everybody questioning her decision at the time, but she held firm on walking away. She explained that learning how much she had stashed away in the bank made her realize she “had enough money to take care of everyone in my life, philanthropy, and strangers.”
At the time, O’Donnell was a mother to four children, and she wanted to be more present in their day-to-day lives. “I wanted to be at their softball games. I wanted to be at school plays,” she shared.
Warner Brothers, the production company for the show, tried to talk O’Donnell into sticking around. They were willing to dole out some big dollars to entice her to keep going, but she left them stunned by rejecting their offer.
O’Donnell told Page Six that Warner Bros. offered her $100 million if she would continue her daytime show for two more seasons. When they asked her why she didn’t say yes, she remembered thinking, “Because I already have that money and if I think I need more, something’s wrong with me.”
Rosie O’Donnell attends the 2026 Tony Awards. Steven Bergman/AFF-USA.COM / MEGA
While O’Donnell walked away from that show, she didn’t leave show business entirely. In fact, she went on to do quite a bit more daytime, even having another show of her own.
The Rosie Show aired from 2011 to 2012 on OWN, Oprah Winfrey‘s network. However, it did not have the same kind of success that her original show did. The costly show didn’t pull in the ratings, shared Deadline, and her personality seemed ill-suited for the audience OWN brought to the table.
She was a co-host on The View for some time as well, first from September 2006 to May 2007, and again from September 2014 to February 2015.
More recently, O’Donnell launched a one-woman stage show titled Common Knowledge. She has already performed the show in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, and she has a limited run of nearly sold-out performances scheduled from July 22 to August 8 at New York City’s Daryl Roth Theatre.
This story Rosie O’Donnell Explains Why She Walked Away From Her Hit Talk Show at the Height of Its Success first appeared on Closer Weekly. Follow Closer Weekly on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.