Rosie O’Donnell has revealed she quietly got a facelift earlier this year, and the price tag left her wrestling with guilt.
The 64-year-old comedian and former talk show host opened up in a Monday, May 25, Substack post, writing that she had a lower deep plane facelift in January. She said the procedure “cost more money than I have ever paid for a car.” That part clearly bothered her.
“My privileged place in this world,” O’Donnell wrote. “And that feels almost shameful to me.” She also said the decision was complicated because she had always seen herself as someone who would never have cosmetic surgery.
O’Donnell Says She Once Saw Facelifts As A Betrayal
O’Donnell admitted she previously felt strongly against facelifts and viewed them as something that went against her beliefs about feminism, aging, and women accepting themselves.
“I thought it was a betrayal,” she wrote. “Of feminism. Of aging. Of our team of women worldwide.”
Then her body changed. “And then I lost 50 pounds,” she added.
O’Donnell said she usually accepts herself as she is, but her stance began to feel less honest over time. “There’s a point where acceptance starts to feel like lying,” she wrote. So, she started researching.
Her Daughter’s Reaction Hit Hard
O’Donnell said her feelings shifted again when her 13-year-old daughter Clay found out and urged her not to do it.
“Young women look up to you,” Clay told her. According to O’Donnell, Clay also said she “wouldn’t be able to respect” her if she went through with it. That comment stayed with her. O’Donnell wrote that Clay sounded like a younger version of herself: certain, idealistic, and morally rigid.
The comedian is a mother of five. She shares Parker, 31, Chelsea, 28, Blake, 26, and Vivienne, 23, with ex-wife Kelli Carpenter. She adopted Clay with her late ex-wife Michelle Rounds.
O’Donnell said the moment with Clay became part of a larger lesson. “I want them to grow up in a world where they don’t feel like they have to change,” she wrote, while adding that she also wants them to know they can change if they choose.
The Result Was So Subtle No One Noticed
O’Donnell eventually went forward with the procedure after choosing a doctor whose work she had seen through friends.
Still, she said she did not want to fall into the trap of endless tweaks. “I wanted a limit,” she wrote.
The twist? According to O’Donnell, nobody noticed. “Not one person,” she said. “Not a friend, not a stranger, not even people who owe me compliments.”
She joked that she went through “a full existential feminist crisis,” had her face and neck surgically changed, and got almost no reaction.
Still, O’Donnell said she is happy to be alive, honest, and able to use her voice in this stage of life. “This is me,” she wrote.
