Daytime TVs original Queen of Nice shifted expectations for talk shows and the people who host them.
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It was May 1999.
Just weeks after the Columbine massacre.
What started as chitchat with ODonnell about his onscreen romance quicklyturned into an argumentover the Second Amendment.
I didnt come on your show to have a debate.
Watch out, kid, supervising producer John Redmann recalls Selleck warning the panicked 10-year-old.
America was as shocked as the tinyPhantom Menacestar.
This wasThe Rosie ODonnell Show.
And now, a former Texas cocktail waitress turned music superstar ispoised to becomethe genres new queen.
But when America was still running on dial-up, ODonnell seized on a prescient spark.
I thought,Oh, this is gonna bite me in the ass, ODonnell tells Vulture.
But the programming landscape was, as ODonnell describes it, a thug festival.
You dont get a second chance.
It felt like we were going to the clubhouse every day.
That authenticity resonated across America.
Have you seen this show?
It was lightning in a bottle.
The shows appeal spanned beyond traditional daytime-talk-show demos.
A motorized footstool occasionally popped out from the interview chair to accommodate the shortest of legs.
For viewers in small-town America who might otherwise never see a Broadway performance, it was eye-opening.
It was a two-way street, ODonnells former assistant turned show writer, Caissie St. Onge, says.
But for ODonnell, the ultimate guest was Barbra Streisand.
No detail was too small to ready the stage for Streisands emotionalfull-episode appearancein 1997.
When the host and singer finally met, both women sobbed.
I cant really watch that tape.
Who would ever think that you could meet the person who you would dream of every single night?
They asked many times, she says.
Not every guest who warranted more airtime went off without a hitch.
(Reps for both men have denied the incidents.)
Whitney Houstonbailed on a 1997 performance45 minutes before airtime.
I almost thought I was having a dream or something, she says now.
She had a knack for doling out justice on air.
And remember, just say nope to Scope.
So she made a practice of plugging their products in exchange for their donations to various groups in need.
You could really use your muscle like the mafia does, but for good, ODonnell says.
You could go, Well, listen, Id love to talk about your new product.
And thats how we did it.
We bartered for charity.
She was not the queen of nice.
She was the queen of fair.
As predicted, that Queen of Nice persona did come back to bite ODonnell.
She was not the queen of nice.
She was tough because she cared about the show.
I just dont think its a fair comparison at all.
But there was this unspoken rule that were not going to fucking be mean to people.
They werent entirely wrong.
But while ODonnell was never in the closet per se, she didnt publicly discuss her own sexuality.
using the radio-DJ technology at her desk.
Theirs was a platonic love affair for the ages.
I remember him saying, I got her these roses.
Do you think shell like them?
And we were all like, Are you kidding me?!
But she also felt she couldnt openly come out.
And if were not gay, were theater geeks.
It was sort of a powerful feeling.
The closest ODonnell came to publicly discussing her sexuality happened when DeGeneres appeared as a guest in 1996.
Hey, wait a minute.
Im a big fan of Casey Kasem, ODonnell replied on air.
I did that in solidarity with her as another gay woman, ODonnell says.
I think that was a wonderful moment on the show, and a real true moment.
The intent of it was simply to stand together with someone else.
People still write me and say, You ruined it!
The Rosie ODonnell Showhad catapulted ODonnell into a new, bizarre level of stardom and scrutiny.
There was no barrier when I was out in public, ODonnell says.
Thats been my whole life in show business: Everyone thinks they know someone just like me.
Everyone is like,Oh my God, youre just like my cousin, Elizabeth.
Or,Youre just like my friend, Eileen.
Everybody found me relatable.
Columbine had deeply affected her, and she was newly on medication to battle depression.
The relentless fame was also oppressive.
Superstardom is close to postmortem.
Thats what Eminem wrote.
People still write me and say, You ruined it!
Increasingly, ODonnell was finding it impossible to remain politically neutral in the public eye.
Im so glad that I was not on TV when we entered the Iraq War, she says.
Shewason TV the morning of September 11, 2001.
(ODonnell would later espouseher own theoriesaround the attacks.)
Because when things like this happen, what does it matter?
It was very dark.
But just one week later,The Rosie ODonnell Showwas back on the air.
I remember thinking your life could be over tomorrow, she says.
Let people see who you love.
Eight months later, ODonnell signed off from Studio 8G for the last time on May 22, 2002.
From a business standpoint, the show could have continued apace for years.
But ODonnell was spent.
People like Ellen and Oprah, they are long-distance runners.
They seem to have an endless resource.
I dont have that, ODonnell says.
They kept offering me more money and more money and more money.
But my mom died at 40, and I was 39.
You cant go backwards.
I think thats what we find, she says now.
Yet the spirit ofThe Rosie ODonnell Showstill ripples across daytime and late night alike.
For her part, ODonnell is happy to have passed the torch.
Gone are the days when shed be surrounded by expectant fans the minute she left her home.
They see me and they wink at me, ODonnell says.
And I wink back.
