Rosie O’Donnell's daughter arrested on drug, neglect charges

Rosie O’Donnell calls addiction a ‘deadly disease’ after daughter’s drug-related arrest

Rosie O'Donnell standing at a microphone wearing a black blazer with her arms outstretched and palms up

Oct. 21, 2024 12:54 PM PT

Rosie O’Donnell is speaking out after her daughter’s arrest on child neglect and drug possession charges.

Chelsea O’Donnell, a 27-year-old mother of four, was arrested last month in Wisconsin after police carried out a search warrant. She was booked into Marinette County Jail and charged with multiple felony accounts — child neglect, possession of methamphetamine and maintaining a drug trafficking place — as well as several drug misdemeanors, according to court documents reviewed by The Times.

After an initial release on $2,000 bond, Chelsea was charged again earlier this month in Oconto County with additional felony drug and bail-jumping charges, according to an Oct. 14 court filing. She is due to appear in court on Nov. 4 and Nov. 7 (once in each county).

Following reporting on her eldest daughter’s arrest, Rosie posted a statement alongside a photo of Chelsea “from a better time.”

“Sadly this is not new for our family,” the former talk show host said, adding that her daughter has “struggled with drug addiction for a decade.”

“We [are] all hopeful she will find her way out of this deadly disease,” she said.

While Rosie’s peers including “RuPaul’s Drag Race” co-host Michelle Visage and “Rizzoli & Isles” alum Angie Harmon sent “much love” and wishes for Chelsea’s recovery, others in the comments section criticized Rosie’s parenting in tandem with her vocal opposition to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s candidacy.

“Maybe go focus on your own family instead of telling people who to vote for,” one user wrote.

Another more directly invoked the former president, writing, “You might want to ask DJT how he raised 5 intelligent, respectful, healthy, and loving children.” (Rosie O’Donnell and Trump have had a fraught history for years.)

Rosie’s highly publicized relationship with her daughter fluctuated throughout Chelsea’s teenage and early adult years.

In 2015, Chelsea ran away from Rosie’s home in New York with her therapy dog. The situation was especially dangerous, Rosie’s publicist said at the time, because the “mentally ill” 17-year-old had stopped taking her medication, The Times previously reported. A week later, both Chelsea and the dog were found “safe and uninjured on the Jersey Shore.” Soon after, Chelsea went to live with her birth mother in Wisconsin.

Years after the incident, Chelsea alleged to DailyMail that Rosie was “verbally abusive” during her childhood and that the two were currently estranged. The comedian called her daughter’s comments “unfounded — untrue — and desperate.”

“[Chelsea] has been in and out of hospitals most of her life,” Rosie said, adding that being “born addicted to heroin” and growing up “very sick” rendered her “not capable of truth or reason.”

The Emmy-winning TV personality reconnected with her daughter in 2018 after Chelsea gave birth to her first child.

“She’s doing better now and we’re both communicating with each other,” Rosie said that year while guest-hosting “The Talk.”

“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, adding that their relationship had been strengthened by its setbacks.

Rosie O’Donnell calls addiction a ‘deadly disease’ after daughter’s drug-related arrest

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