Rosie O’Donnell is revealing why Keanu Reeves was “one of the worst” guests she had on her eponymous talk show.
O’Donnell hosted over 1,000 episodes of The Rosie O’Donnell Show between 1996 and 2002 and interviewed a who’s who of celebrities, including Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Britney Spears.
During a Monday, October 13, appearance on Australian talk show Sam Pang Tonight, the comedian shared memories of some of her guests, including the Matrix star.
While actress and singer Barbra Streisand was “probably” O’Donnell’s “favorite” guest, she said, “One of the worst, who, I love the guy, but he’s not good on talk shows: Keanu Reeves.”
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“He’s so sweet, he looks gorgeous, I love all his movies, but he would not answer a question,” O’Donnell, 63, continued. “I’d say, ‘So, Keanu, how’s it going? How are you feeling?’ [He’d respond] ‘Good.’ We were live. We couldn’t retape. I finally said after three minutes, ‘You know, Keanu, it is a talk show. You have to talk.’”
“But he did come back, and he got the hang of it,” O’Donnell added, reiterating that Reeves, 61, is “a lovely man and a good-hearted guy, so I don’t wanna throw him under the bus.”
O’Donnell shared that the “best guest to have on” was Only Murders in the Building star Martin Short.
“Because you come out and say, ‘How you doing, Marty?’ and it’s over for you,” she revealed. “He stands up and he goes, ‘I’m here!’ He was the funniest and the nicest guy, so I would say Marty Short was definitely one of the best.”
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O’Donnell also addressed her infamous 1999 interview with actor Tom Selleck, whom she clashed with over gun laws in the wake of the Columbine massacre.
“It was very awkward. I had never been unkind or controversial, but Columbine had just happened,” the former talk show host said. “It was 1999. He had an ad in the magazines that said, ‘I am the NRA. Shooting teaches children good values.’ And I was so torn up about Columbine that I just didn’t give up. And then, like an innocent idiot, I walked off-stage and said to my staff, ‘Do you think that’ll get any press?’”
O’Donnell’s interview with Selleck, 80, made headlines at the time. In 2007, after O’Donnell began clashing with Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View, Selleck told Access Hollywood, “I still like Rosie. I think she needs to take a deep breath and stop thinking everybody who disagrees with her is evil.”
The former View cohost also reflected on her clash with Selleck in a 2021 interview with People.
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O’Donnell said, “I think it’s just the first time that I ever challenged a celebrity. Every other one I was nice to. If they said, ‘Please, let’s not talk about my divorce or my recent drug addiction, drug rehab,’ I would do what they asked.”
“I was not a ‘get you’ kind of interview, I had no desire to make anyone feel uncomfortable,” she added. “Like Johnny Carson taught us, if there was egg on anyone’s face, it’s supposed to be on the host, not the guest. So I think no one was expecting that I would challenge someone in the way that I did.”
