A former staffer at Rosie O'Donnell's
The Rosie Show has claimed that O'Donnell turned the show into
a “hellhole.”
O'Donnell's long-awaited return to
television was trumpeted by the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) as a
cornerstone of the nascent network when the show premiered in
October. On Friday, OWN canceled The Rosie Show due to poor
ratings.
The 49-year-old openly gay O'Donnell
said on Friday that she was returning to New York. The following day
she tweeted a photo of herself and fiance Michelle Rounds along with
the message: “On the way to taste wedding cake – sunny beautiful
in NYC – St. Patty's party people in the streets – stay present –
xxx.”
A report on The
Daily Beast concluded that O'Donnell's managing style was to
blame for the show's demise.
“It was such a fucking hellhole,” a
former staffer is quoted as saying.
Over its short TV life span, the show
lost some 30 employees “possibly because of a boss who couldn't
decide what she wanted and frequently humiliated them in public,”
the site's Ramin Setoodeh wrote.
Setoodeh also reported that O'Donnell
was in New York City “tweeting about what a fun day she was having
on Broadway” on the day her Chicago staff was informed that the
show had been canceled.