Rosie O'Donnell Talks Openly About Her Sadness Over Estranged Daughter

On October 17, 2015, Rosie O’Donnell performed at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York. But her set was punctuated by a melancholy discussion of her currently estranged daughter Chelsea.

As Page Six reports, O’Donnell’s relationship with her adopted daughter has been fraught for some time:

“‘I love all my kids. My daughter has been in the news. It’s been in the news, but it’s not news to the family. As Mom, my wish is for peace and love and wait until it’s done,’ the 53-year-old said.”

O’Donnell claims that Chelsea, 18, has arrived at the classic age of rebellion, but hers has been of an especially acute variety. According to Page Six, Chelsea “was reported missing” in August 2015 and “was found with an alleged heroin dealer she met on Tinder.” Although Chelsea returned safely home, she was quick to depart once more, this time “to live with her birth mother.”

However, this living arrangement was, too, short-lived. According to ET, Chelsea is now staying with 26-year-old Steve Sheerer, the man with whom she was found in August.

Chelsea has, previously, expressed aggravation with O’Donnell, stating that her public persona differs significantly from her behavior in intimate settings, implying an artificiality to her mother’s personality. To DailyMail.com she claimed, “When we’d go out, she was a completely different person in public than at home, and I had a hard time with that. It’s like two different people.”

In this midst of this domestic unrest, O’Donnell is also grappling with her divorce from Michelle Rounds. She moreover left her role as a panelist on The View, truly rendering this a time of tumult.

But as O’Donnell expressed at Gotham, she is especially haunted by Chelsea’s absence.

“I keep thinking I see Chelsea,” Page Six reports her as saying, “When your kid isn’t there you see them everywhere.”