Rosie O’Donnell is opening up about her unlikely relationship with convicted killer Lyle Menendez.
“He started calling me on a regular basis from the tablet phone thing they have,” O’Donnell, 63, told The New York Times in an interview published on Saturday, April 12. “He would tell me about his life, what he’s been doing in prison and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to trust and be vulnerable and love a straight man.”
Lyle, 57, and his brother Erik Mendendez were convicted of first degree murder for the 1989 murder of their parents, Joe and Kitty Menendez. They were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. (The brothers are currently seeking a resentencing that, if approved, could make them eligible for parole immediately. A hearing is scheduled for April 17 and 18.)
In 1996, while appearing on Larry King Live, O’Donnell told host Larry King that she believed the brother’s defense — that they had been abused and molested as children by their parents and their decision to kill their parents was an act of self-defense.
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Shortly after, O’Donnell said she received a letter from Lyle. The former talk show host told the Times that in the letter Lyle “thanked her for her support and stated his belief that she ‘knew’ from a personal place that what he was saying was true.”
According to O’Donnell, her belief in the brothers’ defense did come from a personal place — she alleges that “she and her siblings had been molested by their father.”
“At that point, I had not ventured anywhere near this in my family or in my therapy,” she told the Times, adding that she did not respond to Lyle’s letter initially.
It wasn’t until she watched a 2022 documentary about the brothers and discussed their case on TikTok that she reconnected and established consistent contact with Lyle. O’Donnell told the Times Lyle’s wife, Rebecca Sneed, reached out to her to “see if she was interested in speaking with him.”
O’Donnell said yes, going on to tell the outlet that their first phone conversation lasted upwards of three hours.
While she said her friends initially “expressed concern” over her newfound friendship, she told the Times she simply “shrugged” at the fact that “he’s a murderer” and instead went to visit Lyle in prison.
O’Donnell reportedly “spent two weeks commuting daily to the prison,” where she learned about a program Lyle and his fellow inmates were involved in that helped train and place dogs with blind, disabled veterans and children diagnosed with autism.
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Eventually — after Lyle encouraged O’Donnell to get a dog for her son, Clay, through the program — she was paired with a Labrador mix that had been trained by an inmate convicted of armed robbery.
“I noticed the difference in Clay immediately,” O’Donnell told the outlet of her son’s reaction to the dog shortly after they bonded at home. “I was shocked to find out tha tall the stories I heard from other mothers of autistic children were true.”
As a result, O’Donnell filmed a documentary highlighting the program, titled Unleashing Hope: The Power of Service Dogs for Autism, which will be released on Hulu on April 22.
If you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support. If you have experienced sexual assault, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 for confidential support. To report child abuse, consult the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Welfare Information Gateway for state-specific reporting phone numbers.
