Rosie O’Donnell has fled Donald Trump’s USA with her 12-year-old Clay, leaving behind the rest of her family including her daughter Chelsea, who she has now reportedly cut out of her will.
Clay is the youngest of the comedian’s five adopted children – Parker, 29, Blake, 25, and daughters Chelsea, 27, Vivienne, 22.
After O’Donnell opened about the health benefits of relocating to Ireland from the US, it has now been reported The View host, 63, cut her daughter out of her ‘$80,000,000’ estate in the days before she left.
‘Chelsea really didn’t care that Rosie wrote her out,’ a source told the Daily Mail.
‘I mean who wouldn’t want to have access to millions? But for Chelsea it is not about the money, it’s about feeling wanted and loved.
‘And that’s something she feels she has never really had from Rosie.
‘Money is what allowed for Rosie to send her away to six or seven boarding schools during her lifetime.
‘Rich people can pay someone else to raise their kids. Middle- or lower-class parents actually have to be parents, they can’t ship their kids off at the first sign of trouble,’ the source added.
Chelsea has now gone to court with a petition to change her name to her birth mother’s, the publication reports.
O’Donnell’s representative pointed the outlet to a 30-stanza Substack poem the comedian wrote about her daughter on April 6 – titled simply ‘my child chelsea’, written without capital letters.
She added they would not be making a further comment.
According to documents obtained by the publication, O’Donnell cut Chelsea out of two separate trusts on January 6, days before the TV star left the country in protest of Trump’s re-election.
In the lengthy poem, O’Donnell said Chelsea’s story is ‘hers to tell’ and that she wants a ‘private life’.
One stanza reads: ‘I am here for her – she’s not here for me / a wise woman once said.’
O’Donnell also wrote how Chelsea rang her that same day to share the news she’d got her high school diploma 10 years late, which made her cry.
She went on: ‘im proud of her / living her truth / i respect her desires / her struggles her success.’
Rosie O’Donnell and Chelsea’s fraught relationship
After Chelsea Belle O’Donnell was born on September 20, 1997, she was adopted by Rosie and her ex-wife Kelli Carpenter.
The presenter and her eldest daughter haven’t had the easiest relationship, as they’ve been estranged multiple times throughout the years.
In August 2015, O’Donnell announced Chelsea had gone missing from their New York home. She was found a week later and moved to Wisconsin to live with her birth mother Deanna Micoley.
‘Chelsea, like millions of people, lives with mental illness,’ a representative told People at the time. ‘It has been a difficult road for Chelsea and her family and they just want her back safe.’
‘Chelsea made a decision when she turned 18 that she wanted to go to her birth mother. This was her choice,’ O’Donnell representative added. However, in May 2017 Chelsea claimed to the Daily Mail that she’d been kicked out of her house.
In the interview Chelsea claimed that O’Donnell had threatened to hit her with a wine bottle because she got a tattoo.
After the interview, O’Donnell said Chelsea had suffered a ‘tough road’, explaining: ‘Chelsea is mentally ill. Has been in and out of hospitals most of her life,’ O’Donnell added.
‘She is very sick. She is not capable of truth or reason.’
In 2018 O’Donnell said on The Talk that her relationship with Chelsea was on the up and she was ‘doing better’.
‘When somebody does something unforgivable to you and you can forgive them and they can forgive you, there’s a kind of grace that descends upon the both of you, within that,’ she said.
Inside Rosie O'Donnell's move to Ireland from the US
‘I’m telling you, I feel healthier. I’m sleeping better without the stress and anxiety about what was happening politically in the US,’ O’Donnell revealed on TikTok on March 21, explaining how the move hasn’t been easy but is the ‘safest decision’ for her and Clay.
O’Donnell also mentioned her historic sparring match with Trump – which has been ongoing since she hosted The View current affairs show in 2006 – has contributed to her move.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
‘When I told the truth about him, he went nuts. It’s been 17 or 18 years of it already and I’m sick of it. I didn’t want to live with it when he was back in office. I knew it would tax me emotionally to have to do that. I’m very happy we made the decision we made,’ she told fans.
Talking about Clay – who is non-binary and goes by the pronouns they/them – O’Donnell said they are ‘doing so well’ in the ‘beautiful’ Ireland.
O’Donnell also explained how Clay, who has autism, suffers from Avoidant Resistant Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), which makes their diet a challenge.
She said: ‘Autism isn’t easy. It’s a mystery. But I could not love this child any more. They make me happy every day.’
In 2024, mother-of-four Chelsea was arrested multiple times for a series of offences including drug possession charges and felony child neglect.
O’Donnell spoke out about the arrests, saying ‘sadly this is nothing new’ and that Chelsea has ‘struggled with drug addiction for a decade’.
‘We are all hopeful she will find her way out of this deadly disease,’ she added.
After her third arrest in November 2024, O’Donnell wrote on Instagram: ‘After being bailed out by her birth mother — Chelsea was arrested again — and is facing many charges related to her drug addiction — we all hope she is able to get the help she needs to turn her life around.’
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.