Rosie O’Donnell has not looked back since moving across the pond to Ireland.
“Never, for one moment since I arrived here, did I regret my choice. People have been so welcoming, so accepting, and they have a different view of celebrity in the culture here,” O’Donnell, 63, told Variety in an interview published on Thursday, May 29. “They are not prioritized over other people. People are much more friendly and intimate with each other in a real way.”
She added, “Every time I go into the pharmacy, I fall in love, because the pharmacist talks to you. Have you ever spoken to a pharmacist at CVS? I call my friends every time, going, ‘I think the pharmacist has a crush on me.’”
While O’Donnell didn’t clarify whether she was actually romantically involved with the locals, she did praise their open nature.
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“It’s a beautiful way of life,” the And Just Like That guest star gushed. “The smallness of this nation fits me very well.”
O’Donnell recently relocated to the Emerald Isle with her 12-year-old child, Clay, who has autism.
“We chose Ireland and didn’t really know where to go,” O’Donnell exclusively told Us Weekly in April. “Someone said Dalkey, and I found a house online that was in Glengarry. But when the people who were helping us move in went there, there was mold in it. [We] could not move there, especially with an autistic child who has some allergy issues. And so, we ended up in Howth [at an Airbnb].”
O’Donnell and Clay later settled in Dublin.
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“There’s a great, great school there. And Clay has done very well. And they were really welcoming,” she gushed to Us. “And I love the little town, the little village. It’s in the heart of Dublin, but it’s still a village where you know the name of the grocer and you know the name of the cashiers. People are unbearably kind in a way that shocks me every single day.”
O’Donnell further stressed that the move was what she “needed to do for the safety and sanity” of herself and her non-binary child.
Despite the big move, O’Donnell has made sure to stay connected to her friends and adult children who still live in the United States.
“I call [and] I FaceTime my kids,” O’Donnell told Us. “I have two best friends, Junie and Jackie, since I [was] 3 years old. They’re really like sisters. And I talk to them all the time. I have two brothers I’m very close to. I talk to them all the time.”
