- 6 minutes ago
The comedian lets loose on everything from her 60-lb. weight loss to her recent facelift to the ups and downs of raising five kids
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00:00League of Their Own, I remember thinking,
00:01oh, God, I'm so fat, you know, this is gonna be hard.
00:04And Penny Marshall didn't help by saying,
00:06Rosie, I want you to lose 20 pounds
00:09before we start principal photography.
00:12And I'm like, you think I carry it around for fun, Penny?
00:15Is that what you do?
00:16You think I was, I could get it off,
00:18but I've just been holding onto it for the glory?
00:21When I look back, though, you know, I go,
00:23God, I wish I could have enjoyed the size that I was,
00:27which I'm now the same weight
00:29that I was during League of Their Own.
00:35The doctor said, could you take a shot?
00:36And I was like, I guess so, I don't know.
00:38And I go, is it insulin?
00:40He's like, no, it's this thing called Manjaro.
00:42I couldn't even pronounce it at first.
00:44I started three years ago
00:45when I was diagnosed with diabetes, too.
00:48And my doctor, it wasn't that popular then.
00:51It wasn't like a, you know, you saw O-O-O, Ozempic,
00:54but I didn't know they were related.
00:56So I started taking it and I was stunned
01:02at how it quieted the food noise.
01:05I did something very interesting.
01:07Because I have lost and gained weight often in my life,
01:12I wanted to go very, very slow.
01:14So I stayed a year on the first dose, 2.5.
01:19I spent my second year on the second dose, 5.
01:22And now I'm in my third year, I'm at 7.5.
01:25So steadily, I've lost about a pound or two a month
01:31for three years.
01:34And I have had no side effects.
01:37I really wish that I could do commercials for Manjaro
01:41and they would drop the price instead of paying me.
01:44That's what I think.
01:45Because when I see people struggling with obesity,
01:48I want to stop and go, I know what it feels like.
01:51And I know the shame that we carry and the humiliation
01:54that is dealt to people who are overweight in our country
01:58and in our culture.
02:00And I want to take it away like it took mine away.
02:04All the shame and all the guilt
02:06and all the responsibility.
02:08You know, I always tell this story, but my kids,
02:12I had four little kids who were going trick-or-treating
02:14and they'd come home with pillowcases full of candy.
02:17And then they would hide it from me, smart children.
02:21But I would go to sleep and wake up at 3 in the morning
02:24and go, I know there's a Nestle's Crunch Bar in here somewhere.
02:27And I would find their candy and I would eat my kids' candy.
02:31But I couldn't help myself.
02:32When I hear of people struggling with serious addiction,
02:36I relate mine to food, right?
02:38And this has taken it away.
02:40And I hope that that's what the future is.
02:42But I won't go off it in the same way that
02:45if I went off my low blood pressure medication,
02:49my blood pressure would skyrocket again.
02:51So I'm not going to go off it.
02:53I know some people are ashamed to talk about it.
02:57But I felt that I wanted to share what I learned
03:01and how it helped me.
03:03And I don't like secrets on the whole.
03:05It's very strange to be able to go and just buy a pair of jeans,
03:09like these jeans that fit.
03:10That, you know, we did a photo shoot today
03:13and my guys got me all those beautiful clothes
03:16and they're able to get them and get them tailored.
03:20And I feel unashamed.
03:21What I would do late night, my biggest concern wasn't my set.
03:26It was, did I look fat?
03:27I remember the first time I did a talk show ever.
03:30It was Pat Sajak's show was the first one I did.
03:32People were saying, you were so good at it.
03:34And I go, how did I look in that blazer?
03:36When I look at it now, I wasn't even heavy then.
03:38But I feel much healthier.
03:39I feel much more powerful in my own physicality.
03:44I had lost so much weight that I had a lot of excess skin here.
03:49And I had two very large, what they call marionette lines.
03:53And it made me look really sad.
03:55And people in Ireland are like, Rosie, are you all right, love?
03:58You look like something's wrong, darn it.
04:00I'm like, it's my face.
04:01It's not, I feel actually happy here.
04:05But no, it's my face.
04:06These are new and I don't know what to do about them.
04:09And so many of my friends in L.A. had deep plane facelifts.
04:14And they all talked to me about it and told me how much better they felt, similar to how I
04:19felt with Manjaro.
04:20They're like, you're going to feel free and you're going to feel better and you're going to not fight with
04:25the mirror so much.
04:26So I chose a lower deep plane, which is really from here down.
04:32So all of this stayed the same because I didn't want, you know, I'm an actress.
04:36I didn't want my face to be frozen or to be unrecognizable.
04:42I just wanted to get rid of what it got rid of exactly.
04:47And I had to wrestle with myself because as a feminist, I always felt like, well, this is the patriarchy
04:53and this is the male gaze.
04:55And this is not anything that I believe in.
04:58And the biggest person I had to deal with was Clay, who said, you know, mommy, young girls look up
05:07to you.
05:07And what does your legacy stand for if you do this?
05:10Now, I'll tell you something. I really changed my mind for about six months.
05:16Then I decided, you know, I have to do what's right for me.
05:23And that's the real power of feminism, that women get to decide what they want to do with their body
05:28and when.
05:29So I went to New York. I found a wonderful doctor who wanted to do minimalistic and was known for
05:36natural facelifts.
05:38And his name is Mark Zimbler. And he did just the minimal amount he could do to make this part
05:46better.
05:47And I think I look very much like I used to look on my show, which I think has something
05:52to do with the recognition factor out in public.
05:55First of all, I started wearing contacts and people are used to seeing me the way on my show with
06:02no glasses.
06:02And I now look a lot like I looked then. So it's very interesting in America.
06:10The response has been very big to my physical face looking like it used to look 30 years ago or
06:18something.
06:21I told all my friends, they knew I was doing it. So the one, especially the ones who had had
06:25one, but I told them all and they were very supportive.
06:29And, you know, Ricky Lake has been very public about hers. She was calling me all the time.
06:33Let me see it. Let me see the bruising. Let me turn to the left. Did you take a pain
06:37pill?
06:37Like she was my coach, two of my other friends who were known, but we're not going to say their
06:41names.
06:42It's their story to tell that they were, you know, all my friends were cheering me on.
06:46So people in my life knew, but I didn't make it public until, you know, when recently when everyone started
06:56saying, God, you look so much better.
06:58You look, what are you doing? And I didn't want to be one of those people who's like, oh, nothing.
07:02I'm here in Ireland and it's beautiful and warm, not physically. It's actually quite cold.
07:10Moved here on January 15th. And it's been pretty wonderful. I have to say.
07:18There was recently a study of all of Europe who had the nicest people and Ireland was in second place.
07:25Not first. I think they should have been first, but we were given such a wonderful welcome by everyone there.
07:31And it is not a celebrity obsessed culture. When people would see me, they wouldn't say, could I have your
07:36picture? Could I have an autograph?
07:38They'd say, welcome, Rosie. Welcome. I found myself really calm and happy there. And that was very, very surprising.
07:47I picked Ireland because I'm 100 percent Irish. I picked Ireland because I had been there as a child after
07:54my mother died.
07:55My father took us there for a summer and I had cousins there still. So it was the only place
08:01that I thought of going.
08:03And I'm very happy that that I did. When I got to Ireland, I had a lot of free time
08:09and everywhere I looked, I saw people who looked like my family.
08:13Like there were 90 year old women in the supermarket. And I was like, God, if my mom lived, that
08:20would have been my mom.
08:21And then I see a little 13 year old girl and I'm like, that looks just like me at 13
08:26and 20.
08:27And, you know, and I started seeing my family in a really interesting way. In America, you don't have that.
08:33Right.
08:33We're a melting pot. We have all different cultures. It's what makes us so wonderful, really.
08:38And, you know, Ireland is only as big as South Carolina. It's a tiny little country. It's a little island.
08:45And everyone kind of knows each other. And there's a love for the country that, you know, really moved me.
08:52And so I started writing. I just started writing.
08:55I had so much stuff about my mom and about being a mother while being motherless and being the older
09:05mother of a 13 year old non-binary child.
09:09So the show opens that I'm doing with the day my mother died and it closes with the last time
09:16I saw her.
09:18And, you know, people cry and they're not expecting it.
09:21A lot of people think, oh, it's going to be anti-Trump and it's going to be stand up-y
09:25and it's going to be.
09:26But it's really not. It's more of a play and it runs the gamut of emotions.
09:32But there is comedy, I swear. I'm still a little funny.
09:35I am the famous actress, the mother of five children, a threat to humanity.
09:40Just an OG lesbian . I tried to write it about 10 years ago.
09:45And when I performed it, I would cry. And so I couldn't really do it.
09:51And when I first started doing this in Ireland, I did it in clubs in Dublin, mostly the International Comedy
09:57Club.
09:58And they were lovely. They would give me an hour to work out my stuff.
10:02I would cry the first few times I did it. And I thought, well, if I could ever get past
10:07that
10:07and be able to just present it without all the untenable emotions attached to it,
10:15because you don't want to tell the audience, this is what you should feel.
10:19Eventually, I got to the point where I was able to do it.
10:22And a few friends sat down and said, you know, this is very poignant.
10:25You should do this at the Fringe Festival.
10:28And then we went and did it and then it's just kind of taken off in a wonderful way around
10:34Ireland and Scotland
10:36and I've performed it about 40 times.
10:40And then when I was coming here for the summer, because my son had a baby and I want to
10:46be around the baby,
10:47and I thought maybe I could do it somewhere just for, you know, 15 shows, 12 shows,
10:54just to see how it would fare in the United States,
10:57because it is sort of a love letter to Ireland in many ways.
11:00But I think it's very relatable.
11:08All I wanted my whole life was to have a bunch of kids.
11:11And I would have had more, but five already is a lot.
11:14And I didn't know that when I was, you know, adopting children in my 30s.
11:19I never had parents as an adult.
11:22So I didn't know how needy they are as adults.
11:27Like, it shocks me. You know, my daughter calls me crying because something happened with her friend and she's 23.
11:34Or my son will call to tell me how depressed he is, that, you know, the American dream is dead,
11:40and give me his philosophy of life.
11:43People sometimes say, that's so great of you that you adopted. You saved those kids.
11:48And I say, no, no, no. Those kids saved me.
11:51It was like each kid was like a swimmy.
11:54You know, like I was putting them on and I was staying afloat because of my love for them
12:00and my desire to give them a nice, beautiful, loving family that said I love you,
12:08which was never said in my house.
12:10My kids now, when I see them and I'm leaving, I go, I love you.
12:13They go, oh, I know, Mom. You know, every time I hang up the phone, I'm like, you know, I
12:19love you.
12:19Yeah, Mom. Yeah. Okay. You've told us. You've told us.
12:23My children are the most important thing to me.
12:25And when you go to my house, you don't see any awards up anywhere.
12:30You don't, you know, because if your mom steals the spotlight all the time just by being famous, you know,
12:38that's hard on a kid.
12:39You know, and I don't want my accomplishments to overshadow them in any way.
12:45And I try to hold them in highest esteem and regard and prioritize them as I always have.
12:54It really did heal so many of my maternal wounds.
12:59Hearing your child call you mama for the first time and now watching my 26-year-old son hold his
13:07baby
13:08is the most indescribable joy that I've ever experienced in my life.
13:14I want to be here for all of it, you know. I really do.
13:18I'm very stunned and surprised all the time by the fact that children need their parents through their whole life.
13:25And when you are robbed of that, you don't know that.
13:28I kind of love seeing the fact that my kids still need me.
13:35And, you know, my son said, Mommy, I want you to move back.
13:40I want you to be around my baby. I want you to be around us.
13:44That really hit home because I understand.
13:48And, you know, the joy that I feel being around him and this newborn, again, I don't have the words
13:57for it.
13:57I get so much fulfillment watching him parent this child that he adores, who adores him right back.
14:05It's an amazing feeling, something I never really anticipated.
14:10You know, Chelsea has four children, you know, but was in the throes of addiction during the life of those
14:16kids
14:16and up until fairly recently, you know.
14:19She's been sober now for a year and a half, and that's a pretty big thing.
14:23But I never got to see her as a mother with those children.
14:27I recently visited her in prison, which was overwhelmingly emotional.
14:36But I saw the kid that I used to know before she left home, and she's about to turn 29.
14:42She ran away at 17 to her birth mother and to a very drug-addled community in Wisconsin.
14:51Made some bad choices.
14:53And now there's finally hope on the horizon.
15:01I do worry what will happen when she gets out.
15:04It's hard to hope because it's been so devastating, as so many people know.
15:11She calls every day and we talk, you know.
15:14When I first started talking to her, they interrupt the phone call with messages like,
15:20all your calls will be recorded here.
15:22You know, you are accepting a call from a prisoner.
15:24Are you an inmate?
15:25And you have to pause while the tape recorder goes, while the recorded message goes,
15:31and then you continue your conversation for your 20 minutes.
15:34And at the beginning, it was very tough for us because we didn't know.
15:37Well, now we're like experts at it.
15:39It's like we could stop mid-sentence, wait until she's done, and pick up right where, you know, where it
15:46was.
15:46And she said to me recently, you know, I think it's great how we're able to time that.
15:52And I thought it's great and it's also sad.
15:59When you're 40 or you're 30, you know, you're worried all the time.
16:03What am I doing? Am I doing it right?
16:06Who's saying bad things about me? How should I respond?
16:09And now you don't really care, you know?
16:11It used to be when our president would say things about me, it would be like, whoa.
16:17Like, you know, first of all, if you had written this as a movie,
16:21a stand-up comic makes fun of a reality show host
16:25who's a bloviating idiot all through her childhood in New York,
16:29and he ends up being the president,
16:31and then he doesn't shut up about her for 20 years.
16:34You couldn't write that movie. It would be unbelievable, you know?
16:37The fact that it's my life is very trippy.
16:44I would like to be in love again. I think it would be nice.
16:48I'm looking for someone who challenges me artistically, intellectually, politically.
16:53someone who shares their love for children and family and puts them first.
16:59I've dated women who were not moms, and it's difficult.
17:04I think I would have to have somebody who is a mother,
17:07because then they understand the connection that you have to your own children.
17:11I can't tell if someone wants to go out on a date with me.
17:15I think everyone just wants to be friends.
17:16I remember this one Broadway woman, very well-known, came over to me and said,
17:21I feel so ashamed because I hit on you all those years ago.
17:25I'm like, you hit on me?
17:26She's like, yeah. I go, this is the first time I even realized you were gay.
17:29I had no idea. If you don't have a sign that says I'm trying to date you,
17:34I totally don't get it, you know?
17:37So I think I have to tune that part of my body or my brain on.
17:42I have to turn it on and get to know that.
17:45To say, you know, it wouldn't be lovely, it would.
17:49And I'm, you know, getting to the point where I think I'm ready.
17:52I'm ready.