Rosie O’Donnell Opens up About Becoming a First-Time Grandmother

Rosie O’Donnell is opening up about the joys of becoming a first-time grandmother.

Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday, the former The View co-host reflected on the special moment her daughter Chelsea welcomed her first child, a baby girl named Skylar Rose. The baby girl is O’Donnell’s first grandchild.

“It was something really beautiful,” she said. “It’s very trite, but it’s what everyone says — when you’re a grandparent, it’s like [having] a baby times a million. And that’s what it felt like.”

Baby Skylar, who Chelsea welcomed with boyfriend Jacob Bourassa, made her entrance into the world on Dec. 18 in Wisconsin, but the little one was so eager to arrive that O’Donnell missed the birth by just one hour despite having jumped on a plane as soon as she found out that her daughter was in labor.

“I flew right in…I just missed the birth but I was there right after,” O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell also reflected on meeting her granddaughter just one day after learning that her friend, director Penny Marshall, had died. Marsahll, who was known for her work on Laverne & Shirley and directed A League of Their Own, passed away on Dec. 17 of heart failure.

“It was a big, big heartbreak when she died, and then my granddaughter was born the next day. So I got the call that she had passed, and then I got the call [about my granddaughter],” she said. “It reminded me about the whole circle of life, and to remember every great thing that I had with her and that she really did give me a film career. I’ll be eternally grateful.”

Skylar’s birth served another important purpose for O’Donnell – she helped mend her broken relationship with Chelsea.

The mother-daughter duo had a notably rocky relationship that was thrust into the spotlight in 2015 when Chelsea ran away at the age of 17. She was found four weeks later at her then-boyfriend’s home in New Jersey and claimed that her mother had kicked her out. Following the incident, Chelsea moved to Wisconsin to live with her birth mother, Deanna Micoley.

O’Donnell and Chelsea’s relationship was defined by a bitter back-and-forth feud in the years that followed, and after discovering that she was pregnant, Chelsea initially stated that her mother would “not be in my child’s life.” Her tone softened, however, and O’Donnell and her daughter were able to find common ground and were said to be “talking again” prior to Skylar’s birth.