Talk show host Rosie O'Donnell says
she's hoping to have singer Adele and actor-comic Russell Brand on
her new talk show.
O'Donnell returns to daytime television
with The Rosie Show, which will debut in the fall on Oprah
Winfrey's nascent cabler OWN.
What we gleaned from O'Donnell's
appearance at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour,
where she was introduced by Winfrey, is that she's obsessed with
turning 50 and isn't likely to be talking much about LGBT issues.
“My mom died at 39,” she said. “So
I was gonna make all my success and then retire at 40, and guess
what? I did that.”
“I'm 50, and half my life I've gotten
her,” O'Donnell said, referring to Winfrey.
“The concept that I can meet them
[celebrities such as Tom Cruise and Barbra Streisand] was really beyond
my belief and now I'm 50 and both of those people have stayed in my
house, so the enthusiasm that I had with celebrities has changed.”
On the show, “You're going to get to
see what it feels like to be 50 years old, moved to another city, to
be divorced, which I never thought I would be, to have one child
living with me and another child living at school. It wasn't what I
thought my life would be, and I think that's the truth for most
people who are 50. You got a game plan. You got a blueprint in your
20s or you're in your 30s, and by the time you get to 50, you're like
holy crap, I didn't expect these kinds of turns.”
O'Donnell turns 50 in March.
When lesbian
entertainment website AfterEllen.com asked how the show would
handle LGBT issues, O'Donnell said “we're not going to look for
controversy, but should it be germane to what's happening in the
world, I'm sure we will bring up current events.”
O'Donnell added that she would like to
have Russell Brand – “I love the guy” – and Adele, who she
described as “epic and gorgeous and fantastic and so positive for
women in every way,” on her show.