The Ellen DeGeneres scandal has rocked the world of showbiz, but her fellow television personality Rosie O'Donnell has said that she is reserving judgments about her for the time being.
O'Donnell, who was the host of her own daytime talk show from 1996 to 2002, said that she has "compassion" for DeGeneres and the accusations she is currently facing for having allegedly created a toxic working environment.
In the video below, Ellen DeGeneres is accused of "mocking" Sofia Vergara's accent:"You can't fake your essence," O'Donnell told Busy Phillips on her podcast Busy Philipps Is Doing Her Best.
"That's why I have compassion for Ellen [DeGeneres], right?" she added. "I have compassion, even though, you know, I hear the stories and I understand. I think she has some social awkwardness."
The 58-year-old then explained why she has never appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
"You know how Ellen surprises everyone?" she said, "I've never done that show because I'm terrified she's going to scare me and give me a heart attack."
O'Donnell said that she now aspires to have another TV show or be the co-host of one because of her expanding family, who she doesn't want to be away from at a movie location for an extended period of time.
"I had to get a nanny, because I hadn't had a nanny till then and he was like, you know, eight, nine months old. So I got my [housekeeper], Maria, to come with me to the movie set to help take care of him, and when I came home after, like, the second day of 12 hours, he wouldn’t come to me. He was staying with Maria…
"And I thought, I need a job where he can grow up with his cousins and his family around him, where I’m going to be there every day to take him to school," she explained.
The A League of Their Own star admitted that in the late 90s she did try and take over Kathie Lee Gifford's job sitting next to Regis Philbin, but needless to say, it didn't happen.
O'Donnell said her decision to leave the show when she had four children under the age of six was "trippy".
"[Hosting] wasn't like anything close to real life," O'Donnell described. "You know, you get mass adulation from the multitudes every day like a shot of heroin in your arm. You get people clapping at your very existence and then telling you how you altered their life, and it's a lot to take in. And when I stepped away, I knew that this was all I could take."
