Rosie O'Donnell on Lindsay Lohan: Someone had to say what I said

Rosie O’Donnell on Lindsay Lohan: Someone had to say what I said

L.A. Times Archives

April 26, 2012 12 AM PT

So, Rosie O’Donnell is trying to clarify her thoughts on Lindsay Lohan -- an opinion not sugarcoated at all when she shared it on national TV earlier this week -- by invoking the memory of the recently deceased Whitney Houston?

Her point: Someone should have helped Houston, and someone should be helping Lohan rather than getting her back to work playing Elizabeth Taylor in “Liz & Dick.”

“Watching Whitney Houston’s funeral,” she said, “I remember thinking, why didn’t more people say what they knew? We all knew.”

Chalk it up to “motherly concern,” the 50-year-old O’Donnell said Wednesday on Twitter.

When “Today”host Matt Lauer had asked her Tuesday about the wisdom of casting Lohan as Taylor, Mama Grizzly O’Donnell hadn’t held back: “I feel very sorry for her. I think she needs a lot of help, she needs a lot of time away.... I think she’s not in a place to work.”

Oh, Rosie also said she wasn’t a fan of Lindsay’s recent” Saturday Night Live” turn either. As a matter of fact, according to Ro, “The last thing she did good, she was 16.” (The one time O’Donnell met Lohan, she said Thursday, was for an interview on “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” around the time of the 1998 film “The Parent Trap.” Lindsay was in the neighborhood of 12 years old at that time.)

That said, O’Donnell appears to have faith in the girl, according to a Wednesday blog post that she closed rather kindly: “lindsay lohan is worth saving / she is the only one who can do it / before it is 2 late / i hope she can finds her value - off camera / and then - when she returns - on camera / she will wow us all / once more.”

So -- what information is O’Donnell now privy to that might help save a troubled young soul? Lohan, for one, is not exactly sure.

“It’s funny that someone you don’t know at all can say something so intrusive, so knowing,” Lilo told Access Hollywood on Tuesday night, suggesting that actual one-on-one interaction might better inform O’Donnell’s opinions.

Michael Lohan had been a bit less diplomatic Tuesday, ripping O’Donnell for judging his daughter, “who has far more talent than Rosie ever had.”

As for the whole dust-up, Rosie said she initially had no idea her words Tuesday had created ripples.

“I didn’t think anything of it. I went out to lunch.”

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