Chelsea O’Donnell says Rosie kicked her out, is ‘like two different people’
Chelsea O’Donnell didn’t run away from home shortly before her 18th birthday, she says: In her version of the story, mom Rosie O’Donnell showed her the door.
“She told me to leave and take my dog†on Aug. 11, about two weeks before Chelsea became an adult, the 18-year-old told the Daily Mail in an interview published Tuesday.
“Rosie knew I was planning to leave, that’s why I think she kicked me out. She asked me to talk about what was going on and I didn’t want to. So she asked for my phone and my computer. ... I gave them to her. A few hours later, she told me to leave,†Chelsea told the Mail. “Rosie said that I was almost 18, and she got all this crap from work, and she didn’t want to have to deal with that at home too.â€
Rosie’s rep told E! News the interview was “heartbreaking on every level.â€
Indeed, after saying her early childhood was good, Chelsea paints a picture of dysfunction that included being raised almost entirely by nannies and, for her, years spent at a boarding school away from her brothers and sisters.
Chelsea said her adoptive mother wasn’t “genuine†a lot of the time, and would often isolate herself from the rest of the family.
“When we’d go out, she was a completely different person in public than at home and I had a hard time with that. It’s like two different people ... “ Chelsea said. “She has this public persona; she will put this big smile on her face and try to be funny. She would always go up to people and want to hold their babies in public. She had this happy, friendly side to her. Whereas when we were home, even if it was on the same day, she would either just be in her room, not engaging with us, or watching documentaries.â€
Attention was drawn to the family drama by Rosie’s cry for help in August, when the former host of “The View†begged on her website and on social media for assistance getting Chelsea back and telling the world through a publicist that her then-17-year-old daughter “lives with mental illness†and needed medication.
Chelsea was found in short order in New Jersey with Steven Sheerer, 25, whom she’d met on Tinder, and police brought her back to the family’s Nyack, N.Y., home. Chelsea said she came home to bags packed full of her clothes. “Literally 10 minutes after the police had dropped me off at the house, I got in a car and went to a friend’s house,†she said. She went to live with her birth mother in Wisconsin about a week later.
“Putting out there that I am mentally ill was really hurtful. People think I’m this crazy person and as I’ve said, I have depression and bad anxiety -- but it’s been something that’s gotten a lot better. But these were personal things and I didn’t want anyone to know them about me,†Chelsea told the Mail.
“I wouldn’t say I’m mentally ill -- I would say lots of people struggle with what I have.â€
Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.
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