Rosie O’Donnell shares tattoo she got to honour her 13-year-old child coming out as nonbinary
Rosie O’Donnell has revealed the heartfelt story behind her tattoo dedicated to her child who came out as non-binary.
The iconic comic, 64, shared a personal story about the permanent reminder she got to honour her child, 13-year-old Clay.
O’Donnell said Clay came out as non-binary in 2024 and started using they/them pronouns. During a recent interview on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, the former Parks & Recreation star complimented O’Donnell for her efforts to get the pronouns correct.
“I love that you’re constantly correcting, in real time, like we all do. It’s really beautiful.”
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O’Donnell said: “And it really matters to them and I know it matters to them.”
But the adjustment hasn’t been easy. The former daytime talkshow host recalled taking action to remember her child’s pronouns.
“I tried my best, but I kept saying ‘she’. And so they wrote on a cardboard paper, ‘they’, and then they would hold it up above their head every time I said ‘she’, like John Cusack in Say Anything, with the boombox, just staring at me.
But it seems the cardboard sign could only do so much.
O’Donnell said she took Clay to her cousin’s tattoo shop with ‘they’ written in Clay’s handwriting and got it permanently inked on her wrist.
“So that I would never forget, that it would remind me,” she recalled.
The Flintstones star said Clay ‘could not care less’ about the tattoo.
O’Donnell is back in the U.S. as the guest host for Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Both O’Donnell and Kimmel have had public spats with President Donald Trump. Kimmel's show taken off the air last year following intense criticism from conservatives and Trump administration officials over the host's commentary on the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
But during her hosting debut on Monday, O’Donnell wasted no time addressing the beef everyone was curious about.
“Hi, I know you’re watching,” she said, staring straight down the lens.
Technically, she could have been talking about anyone. However, Trump is a familiar trope in Kimmel’s opening monologues. O’Donnell and Trump have had a decades-long feud and she is one of his most vocal celebrity critics.
“They said you can’t come home again, but here I am,” she began her opening monologue. “And if you thought the president hated Jimmy Kimmel Live! when it was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, buckle up, people. Buckle up!”
She famously moved to Ireland with Clay as Trump began his second presidential term in January last year.
She also addressed the move in Monday’s monologue. “You know, I’ve been living in Ireland for the past two years because of Mango Mussolini,” she quipped.
“I read that Project 2025 and said, got to get myself out of here, you know? And I decided to go to Ireland, a place where people are driven to drink regardless of who’s running their country.”
In July last year, Trump reportedly threatened revoke O’Donnell’s US citizenship after she criticised his administration’s handling of weather forecasting agencies after floods in Texas.
"Because of the fact that Rosie O'Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, as per Reuters.
"She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!," he added.
However, under U.S. law, a president cannot revoke the citizenship of an American born in the United States. O'Donnell was born in New York state.
Greg Harris