NEED TO KNOW
Rosie O’Donnell revealed her platonic “man-crush” on Broadway star Sydney James Harcourt after seeing him in CATS: The Jellicle Ball
Harcourt’s performance as Rum Tum Tugger in the reimagined production earned acclaim and helped him embrace his confidence
The Tony-nominated revival of CATS closed after four months despite sold-out shows and standing ovations during its run
Move over, Tom Cruise — Rosie O’Donnell has a new celebrity crush.
The Emmy-winning comedian has become smitten with Sydney James Harcourt ever since seeing his performance as the “super sexy, shirtless” Rum Tum Tugger in the Tony Award-winning revival of CATS: The Jellicle Ball. And on Thursday, Aug. 20, she brought the Broadway star straight to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! stage as a guest on her fourth and final night filling in for the late-night host.
“Ending on a high note tonight, all the way from Broadway, my new man-crush is here: Sydney James Harcourt,” O’Donnell, 64, teased during her opening monologue. “Dear Lord, help me.”
“Sydney has been in so many things: Hamilton, The Lion King and my dreams every night for the past six weeks,” she continued.
And lest anyone misunderstand, O’Donnell made it clear her love for Harcourt was simply platonic. “Now, I don’t want to confuse anyone. I’m still a lesbian,” she said. “Though tonight, I’m just a little less-bian.”
“He made a gay girl think,” she said.
Rosie O’Donnell and Sydney James Harcourt on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Thursday, Aug. 20
Credit: Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty
Harcourt later joined O’Donnell for an interview, where she explained that she first “fell madly in love” with him after seeing him in the original Broadway company of Hamilton. But it was Harcourt’s more recent turn in CATS: The Jellicle Ball that apparently took things to another level.
“You are so talented. I could not take my eyes off you on the stage,” she told Harcourt. “You are a great singer and a great dancer, and I can’t wait to see what becomes of your career.”
For his part, Harcourt — who on Thursday also released his first single, “Deviant” — appeared grateful for O’Donnell’s affections as O’Donnell explained she had seen CATS: The Jellicle Ball on Broadway five times during its celebrated run.
The revival, directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, radically reimagined Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s 1982 musical by transforming its tribe of Jellicle cats into members of New York City’s underground ballroom scene. The production first debuted Off-Broadway in 2024 before transferring to Broadway in April, where it became one of the season’s most acclaimed shows, earning nine Tony Award nominations and winning three.
Sydney James Harcourt in ‘CATS: The Jellicle Ball’ on Broadway
Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
When Harcourt was first approached with the chance to play Rum Tum Tugger — the famously flirtatious feline reimagined in the production as a swaggering, often shirtless heartthrob — he initially was skeptical.
“My agent was like, ‘Hear me out, hear me out. It’s set in the Harlem ballroom scene and all of the music is going to be done to house beats and it’s going to have voguing and I know that you love that,’ ” Harcourt recalled. “And from the workshop, I was like, ‘This is it. This is what I want to do with my career, like the kind of stuff I want to do. Representational work.’ And I also felt like, ‘This is going to make the biggest impact since Hamilton.’ “
Sydney James Harcourt (center, back) and the cast of ‘CATS: The Jellicle Ball’ on Broadway
Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
But despite CATS: The Jellicle Ball’s overwhelmingly positive reception, its Broadway run proved short-lived. The show closed Aug. 8, just four months after opening.
O’Donnell told Harcourt she was “heartbroken” by the closing — and still couldn’t understand it. “Can you explain to me why it closed when I saw it five times, it was sold out every time and there were standing ovations in the middle of the show?” she asked.
“It’s a mystery to me as well,” Harcourt said. “I mean, I’m not a Broadway economist. I sing songs and dance, so I don’t know. All I know is that every night the house was full. I have never experienced unadulterated joy in a theater like that ever.”
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O’Donnell felt that joy, especially when she appeared as a guest judge and got to see Harcourt’s performance up close and personal.
“I was not prepared, people,” she told the Jimmy Kimmel Live! audience while footage played of Harcourt’s character flirting with her from the stage. “And I thought right there I was going to have a heart attack!”
“It brought, ‘Maybe things are different than I already thought!’ ” she joked.
Sydney James Harcourt at the 2025 Tony Awards
Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty
That kind of swagger didn’t always come easily to Harcourt. He told O’Donnell that he was “painfully awkward and shy” growing up, explaining that he was bullied and would often get less-than-enthusiastic responses when he attempted to ask girls to school dances.
“Girls, if I ever went up to one to be like, ‘Hey, will you go to the school dance with me?’ They’d be like, ‘Yikes,’ ” he joked. “I didn’t want to go to gym class. So this all happened later.”
Starring in CATS: The Jellicle Ball, Harcourt said, ultimately helped him discover that swagger. While he initially felt pressure to perform what he thought “the sexiest cat” should look like, an associate on the production encouraged him to stop trying so hard.
“I actually made a game out of it: ‘How little could I do?’ ” he recalled. “And the less I did, the more audience response I got. And I realized through that that, ‘Oh my gosh, I just can be myself.’ “
Sydney James Harcourt and Rosie O’Donnell on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Thursday, Aug. 20
Credit: Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty
Harcourt previously opened up about that transformation in a May interview with Playgirl, telling the outlet he had been “awkward” growing up and struggled with acne and his weight during his school years.
That Playgirl appearance naturally caught O’Donnell’s attention. “I only found this out today that you actually appeared in Playgirl,” she said as photos from Harcourt’s shoot appeared onscreen. “I asked them to pixelate the meat and potatoes because it scares me a little bit.”
“The fact that I am even noticing is shocking to even me, ladies and gentlemen,” she joked.
Of course, Harcourt isn’t the first Hollywood leading man to earn O’Donnell’s affection. During the run of The Rosie O’Donnell Show, she famously and frequently professed her love for “cutie patootie” Cruise, whom she called “my Tommy.”
Earlier this month, during an appearance on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, O’Donnell recalled that her very public Cruise obsession caused some confusion when she came out as gay in 2002.
“People were like, ‘You said you loved Tom Cruise,’ ” she said, explaining that the crush was never sexual. “I’m definitely 100% gay.”
“I just wanted to watch him mow my lawn,” the actress teased.
She eventually got her wish: Cruise filmed a video of himself mowing a lawn for O’Donnell, which aired as the final scene of her hit daytime talk show when it ended its six-season run in 2002.
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