Rosie O’Donnell: A Love Letter to Obsession, Belonging, and Ring Dings

I’ve been thinking a lot about Rosie O’Donnell this week. Seeing her return on Jimmy Kimmel, I’ve felt nostalgia, excitement, and a tinge of my old Rosie obsession from growing up. I’ve always been an obsessive at heart. Whether it was Titanic, Beyoncé, the Spice Girls, Ina Garten, New York City, or Paris, when I love something, I never do it casually. I need to know everything, read everything, collect, and absorb until it becomes part of my personality. And in the late ’90s and early 2000s, that was Rosie O’Donnell. The airbrushed T-shirt I’d insisted on as my only vacation souvenir I knew Rosie from two of my favorite childhood movies, A League of Their Own and The Flintstones, but it was watching her stand-up special on HBO weeks before the premiere of The Rosie O’Donnell Show that hooked me. It must have been the first week of summer break when I dragged my blanket and pillow into the living room to watch the first episode on June 10, 1996. How has it been 30 years?! All it took…

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