Rosie O’Donnell says ABC rejected her plan to bring victims of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein onto Jimmy Kimmel Live! during her week as guest host, and she’s now moving forward with a separate interview project of her own.
According to Breitbart News, O’Donnell described the rejected pitch during a recent appearance on the Jann Arden Podcast, saying the network was firm that the segment could not go forward.
“My idea for the last night was to do the Epstein reveal, and they said that they were certain that could not happen,” she said. “So, I said, ‘Well, then I’m going to do it myself.'”
ABC did not air the segment. But O’Donnell didn’t let the idea drop. She later posted a video to social media showing her meeting with a group of Epstein’s accusers, who joined her in singing Helen Reddy’s 1972 feminist anthem “I Am Woman.”
From a Viral Video to a Full Series
The clip drew enough attention that viewers began asking for more. In the posted footage, per Breitbart’s earlier reporting, O’Donnell is seen speaking with the women and telling them, “I’m sorry that our country is so fucked up.” She shared the video to Instagram on September 3 and captioned the post with criticism of U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom she called “corrupt.”
The reaction, O’Donnell said, outpaced what she had actually filmed. Fans assumed she had produced a documentary.
“In a few hours, two hours, we shot the whole thing, and then people said, ‘Where’s the rest of it? We want to see the documentary.’ I’m like, ‘It wasn’t a documentary. It was something we just did in three minutes,'” she explained on the podcast.
That confusion, though, appears to have pushed the project in a new direction. O’Donnell said she is now in conversations to build out individual segments for each of the women she met.
“But now, I’m talking to some people that I will do a segment on each of those women, an up close and personal, and we’ll tell each of their stories, eight of them,” she said.
The 64-year-old actress and comedian said she hasn’t settled on where the finished material will end up. Options under consideration include a feature-length documentary distributed through a streaming service, or a looser rollout on YouTube or social media.
Sharp Words for Trump Supporters
The conversation on the podcast also veered into politics, with O’Donnell directing an insult at supporters of President Donald Trump, describing them as “people who are not intellectually capable of understanding what’s happening.”
Host Jann Arden, the Canadian singer, agreed and added her own characterization, saying such supporters “have a very low degree of literacy,” before noting that her co-host, Caitlin Green, had recently argued that the president’s backers have been “radicalized by their iPads.” Arden went on to say Trump supporters are “just sitting there, and reading this bullshit.”
O’Donnell’s week filling in on ABC’s late-night program put her back in a prominent spotlight, and the Epstein material has since become the most-discussed element of that run — despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that it never made it to air. The network’s decision not to run the segment is now itself part of the story she is telling.
Whether the interviews ultimately land as a streaming documentary or a series of online clips, O’Donnell has framed the project as an answer to the rejection she says she received from ABC: if the segment couldn’t happen on late-night television, she would do it herself. For now, the shape of that “it” — a documentary, a YouTube series, or something in between — remains undecided.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2026/09/22/rosie-odonnell-to-release-epstein-victims-interview-series-after-abc-rejected-her-segment-on-jimmy-kimmel-live/