Rosie O'Donnell says she is planning longer profiles about eight women who participated in a video with her about Jeffrey Epstein's abuse after an idea she hoped to feature during her August guest-hosting stint on Jimmy Kimmel Live! did not make it to air. Speaking on The Jann Arden Podcast on 11 September, the Emmy-winning comedian and former host of The Rosie O'Donnell Show said the women later told her that no other famous person had called to stand beside them.
O'Donnell said her original plan was to bring Epstein survivors into her final episode as guest host, but she was told 'they were certain that could not happen'. Rather than drop the idea, she filmed independently and posted a shorter video to Instagram on 3 September, showing the women joining her for Helen Reddy's 1972 song 'I Am Woman'.
Rosie O'Donnell Says TV Plan Was Turned Down
'My idea for the last night was to do the Epstein reveal,' O'Donnell said of her planned Jimmy Kimmel Live! segment. She said that after being told it could not go ahead, she decided: 'Well, then I'm going to do it myself.' O'Donnell said she contacted a representative of Survivor Sisters and asked how many women could get to her within three days.
A representative for O'Donnell later clarified that she had discussed the idea with Jimmy Kimmel before her guest-hosting run and that Kimmel told her YouTube would be the better home for it. Kimmel later reposted O'Donnell's finished video to his Instagram Story. ABC has not publicly explained why the proposed segment did not make the broadcast.
Eight Women Could Get Their Own Stories
O'Donnell said eight women took part in the original shoot after she asked how many survivors could be brought together within three days. The shoot itself took about two hours. The Instagram edit was only a few minutes long, but she said viewers began asking whether there was more footage or a documentary. O'Donnell now says she intends to develop longer profiles telling each woman's story.
'I will do a segment on each of those women, an up-close and personal, and will tell each of their stories, eight of them,' O'Donnell said. She has not settled on a distribution plan, saying the project could become a documentary for a streaming service, a YouTube series or material released through her own and the women's social accounts. She also said the women told her that no other famous person had called to stand beside them publicly.
Video Followed Renewed Epstein Files Scrutiny
The Instagram video showed O'Donnell and the women dressed in white before singing 'I Am Woman', a song she said taught her as a child to use her voice.
Watch below: Rosie O'Donnell appears alongside Epstein survivors in the video that became the starting point for her proposed longer interview series.
O'Donnell linked the project to comments made in January by Todd Blanche, then deputy attorney general and now U.S. attorney general, who said during discussion of the Epstein files that he did not know 'whether there are men out there that abused these women', while also saying the Justice Department would prosecute if it obtained sufficient evidence to do so. The department continues to maintain an online Epstein Library containing material released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, with victim-identifying information redacted.
Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges, after previously pleading guilty in Florida in 2008 to felony solicitation of prostitution and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. His longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking a minor and other federal offences connected to the recruitment and grooming of underage girls. O'Donnell has not announced a release date, platform or production partner for the proposed series.
