In the first telecast of 'The Rosie Show' since OWN announced the show's cancellation, O'Donnell says her experience working on Oprah Winfrey's network is 'not a nightmare,' but 'a good thing.'
- Mar 21, 2012
AceShowbiz - Rosie O'Donnell has defended OWN's decision to pull the plug on her show. Appearing in a Tuesday, March 20 episode of "The Rosie Show", the 50-year-old host tried to calm her fans who has been lamenting the show's cancellation by saying, "It was fair."
Having nothing but good words for the network's CEO, Oprah Winfrey, O'Donnell shared, "Listen, Oprah gave me an amazing shot at doing this. She really did. She put me back on TV. She believed in me. I didn't even know if I could do it again."
"Oprah has treated me with nothing but respect and with dignity from day one," the former moderator on "The View" added. On her experience working on the short-lived show, she insisted, "It's not a nightmare, it's a good thing."
Explaining what might lead to the show's doom, O'Donnell revealed, "[I was] trying, really, to do...what I thought would be kind of easy for me, but it wasn't really that easy." She went on admitting, "We sort of started off the wrong way. We were kind of trying to do a little bit of what we had done 15 years ago, and you can't do it."
When the show changed its format, they have lost the momentum, she said. "Here's the bottom line... It's a business, right? It didn't make financial sense to continue the show at the cost, because of the amount of viewers," she concluded, before thanking Winfrey, the show's crew and the viewers.
O'Donnell reportedly also addressed her show's cancellation during her birthday celebration on Monday night. One partygoer dished, "She addressed her show's cancellation with a positive outlook. She encouraged ['The Rosie Show'] team to have a great time despite the setback."
OWN announced that it axed "The Rosie Show" after only one season on Friday, March 16. The daily program's final episode will be taped on Tuesday, March 20 and aired on Friday, March 30 in its 7 P.M. time slot.
