In August, Rosie O’Donnell’s then-17-year-old daughter, Chelsea, went missing for a week before being found in the attic of a 27-year-old alleged drug dealer that she met on Tinder. Rosie was beside herself with concern, and she said Chelsea was off her medication. A few weeks later, Chelsea turned 18 and left home to live with her birth mother, who seemed pretty sketchy. Rosie couldn’t do anything though since Chelsea is now an adult.
It’s been over a month. About a week ago, Chelsea moved in with the Tinder guy and his mom. Now she’s spoken to the Daily Mail in a tell-all interview that isn’t so flattering to Rosie. A Rosie source tells Us Weekly that the comedian found the letter “heartbreaking on every level.” Chelsea says that Rosie is a hypocrite and hides her true personality from the world, and there’s much more:
Rosie’s a hypocrite? “I find her not genuine a lot of the time. When we’d go out, she was a completely different person in public than at home and I had a hard time with that. It’s like two different people. I feel she should be her real self, who she really is. She has this public persona; she will put this big smile on her face and try to be funny. She would always go up to people and want to hold their babies in public. She had this happy, friendly side to her.” Whereas when we were home, even if it was on the same day, she would either just be in her room, not engaging with us, or watching documentaries.”
What home life is like: “Our dinners were mostly ordering in pizza or Chinese food because nobody could really cook except for my other mom, Kelli [Carpenter, Rosie’s first ex-wife]. Rosie would eat takeout with us and if there were cookies in the house, she would eat them all. She was always coming into our rooms and asking if we had candy. She would drink beer when we were growing up but after her heart attack she couldn’t. Now I think she drinks wine. I mean, she smokes weed – not around us – but the whole house smells like it.”
Rosie’s hobbies: “She has a whole house which is just for her arts and crafts. She bought the next door neighbor’s house. She goes and spends all day down there. Rosie does a lot of painting and doodles on these little ‘Munny’ dolls [customizable blank figurines] which she puts her signature on and sells online. She has some speakers set up and she blasts Madonna, she’s obsessed with her. But she also like to play Eminem and Chris Brown. She would watch documentaries and draw all day long, in her bedroom or in her arts and crafts house.”
The alleged temper: “Rosie’s fuse was really short with me and she would yell. For punishment, we were sent to our rooms, no electronics, not being allowed to hang out with friends. She told me I was different from the other kids. At the beginning of the summer when Parker was acting like a jerk and she was yelling at him, she turned to me and said: ‘See, you’re not the problem child anymore.'”
[From Daily Mail]
Chelsea also admits she “never felt connected” to Rosie and “never really enjoyed being around her,” which would be devastating for any mother to hear. I’m sure Chelsea is exaggerating a bit, but there’s truth inside the interview as well. Most people have a public persona and a private one, and for a comedian, the discrepancy can be much greater. Having to be “on” for the world must be exhausting, but yeah, it sounds like there were some problems at home. Never eating anything but pizza and Chinese food would get old, and so would never seeing your mom because she’s rocking out to Madonna in her art shed. All of it is so sad, and there are no winners here.
Photos courtesy of Rosie.com & WENN
She left her birth mother’s house and moved in with the drug dealer? What’s up with that?
@BELLE EPOCH
Yea..she doesn’t address any of those more disturbing questions about her own awful behavior does she?
As an onlooker, I saw her mother Rosie go looking for her and rescue her by pulling her dumb azz out of some creepy drug dealer’s house…
..so sorry little spoiled ingrate girl…you’re going to have to do more than call your mom an artsy craftsy person who likes weed, for me to start thinking she’s the devil incarnate and your an innocent angel who in her spare time likes to scare the life out of the woman who raised her by running away and hiding in a drug dealers lair.
I know, right? Heaven forbid her mom have hobbies or discipline her children. She really lost me at the part where she complained that her mom sent her to her room. Seriously?
Well she was disconnected from her adopted children, and instead of “happy family” time, she was withdrawn from her children and self-absorbed. I never bought the whole “happy tolerant liberal” act from Rosie. She was far too angry and could turn vicious too quickly to be such a nice person.
She sounds like a lot of teens talking about their mom. They have great radar for the slightest hypocrisy or even inconsistency — but if it’s THEIR inconsistency, they think they’re allowed.
They’re focused on your flaws and imperfections — but blind to those of their abusive boyfriend or abandoning father. They can tolerate the mean girls at school but turn hyper-sensitive to the smallest slight from their mom.
Her words could be any girl’s, except instead of buying a house for crafts their mom goes to the spare room.
“As an onlooker, I saw her mother Rosie go looking for her and rescue her by pulling her dumb azz out of some creepy drug dealer’s house…”
Read the source article. She says Rosie took her phone and laptop and threw her out (the girl says she was gonna leave in 2 wks when she turned 18 but Rosie wanted her out sooner), and when she was gone and Rosie started looking for her she informed the press she’s mentally ill and off her meds even though she only has depression and anxiety which, I agree with the girl, lots of people have but Rosie made it look like she was psychotic or something. Also, she says 10 minutes after the cops dropped her off at Rosie’s house Rosie gave her her packed stuff and threw her out again.
That is so harsh. Rosie has been notoriously selfish and bad tempered for decades…this girl’s story is so hard to believe?
“only has depression and anxiety” can mean a lot of of things. How a person with those conditions deals with them is the real question. Some people are intensely angry depressed and anxious people while others withdraw and some have a discombobulating mix of both. To be a child of someone with these issues, who may not have developed any healthy coping skills through therapy and/or who also self medicates with other drugs or alcohol (both often totally negate any meds that a person is prescribed for the chemical imbalance) well… it can be a pretty crappy environment. Her daughter could have an attachment disorder as a result.
She really tries to paint Rosie in “Mommie Dearest” light but it doesn’t work. It looks like she has some serious emotional if not mental issues.
Yeah, aside from the takeout only diet, this all sounds pretty normal and not really harmful.
i agree, i think someone needs some money because they got cut off , and selling a story was the most lucrative way to do it.
i’m sure that rosie isnt perfect, but whose parenting skills are. When your rich and dont need to work, is there any reason why you cant spend your days puttering around the house if you so choose?
Teenagers….ugh…… I’m so glad those days are done.
It sounds like a normal, maybe somewhat dysfunctional family to me. There is no such thing as the “perfect” family.
I am a Rosie fan and I am not trying to defend her, but I do get the being “on” while you are in public and then letting go when you are at home and relaxing. Most of us do that with our jobs, and are much different when we are in our own personal settings.
Really. THIS is the worst the girl can come up with? Seems pretty tame. Especially if she had included an accurate rendering of her bio mom’s flaws to balance it out.
I don’t know why people are saying that the daughter going to boarding school was an “unloving move” on Rosie’s part. I went to boarding school, and I felt very privileged to do so. My parents and I have a great bond btw.
I think it’s ridiculous to send your kid off somewhere far away for the entire school year (in her case, several years) just so they can get better education. You’re the parent, take care of your kids. I can’t imagine how it;s good for a child to only see their parents once a month or something. wtf
None of us know for sure what the deal is here, so we shouldn’t judge one way or the other. That said, my first inclination was that Chelsea did this interview to get money, and the tabloids wouldn’t want to print a sweet, happy home life story.
I have no way of knowing if this is all true, so I’ll take this with a grain of salt. IF it is true, then it does NOT sound “normal” to me. Adopting so many children and then spending all day in the other house doing art work, listening to music? Not ensuring, to the best of your abilities, that they eat healthy? What the daughter described, which, again, I cannot verify, I’d call abandonment. I’d call that neglect.
Why do you automatically assume this girl is lying, a spoiled brat, and expecting her to know why she acts out the way she does? I’m baffled by this loyalty to a brazen comedienne you don’t even know. Chelsea has exposed alot more than just accusing Rosie of being “artsy fartsy” and I can’t beleive you honestly don’t see more in her statement than that one specific example. She feels neglected, ignored, unimportant, put down, disconnected and UNLOVED!
She did not paint Rosie as Mommie Dearest. She explained how she feels and it’s a serious concern when a child genuinely feels unwanted and unloved. How does that equate to being a brat or blamed on any mental illness she may have? She sounds anythiing but spoiled. She sounds lonely and unwanted. I knew when this first started that Rosie was going to be exposed as an emotionally unavailable parent – selfish, lazy, and cold with a sharp tongue. I feel really sorry for Chelsea. I do not feel sorry for Rosie. She adopted a bunch of kids for PR value – not becuase she is some saint who wants to help kids and provide a good home and family life. I also have suspected from the get that Kelley was the actual parent/mother to these kids and now they’ve lost the only one that made time for them, enjoyed them, made them feel loved and wanted and made their house a home. I’m truly disturbed and disgusted that people will side with a complete stranger because she’s famous and pushed for LGBT rights? She has been instrumental in garnering support for the LGBT community, but that has nothiing to do with the kind of person she is behind closed doors, let alone what kind of parent she is and it sounds like she’s not much of a parent at all. Where is the compassion for this young woman who only feels loved and wanted by a troubled birth mother who gave her up and an older drug-dealing man? The red flags are high here, but people’s instinct is to support Rosie? Why?
Well said. There’s little that is more painful to a child than feeling disconnected from and not truly loved by a parent. Time with a parent is so much more valuable than the things that parent can provide. Very sad.
I don’t agree or disagree with you but aren’t you making the same assumptions and judgements about Rosie too. We really don’t know what happened in that house. Some of it might be true and some of it might be false. Clearly Chelsea also has some issues
Feeling disconnected does not equal bad parenting automatically. There are any number of issues that can be the reason and we don’t know how much effort Rosie put in to helping this child feel bonded. I said somewhere downthread that my adopted nephew has RAD. He was born to a drug addict. My sister adopted him. Many of his problems stem from not bonding with his birth mother and being born a drug addict himself. My sister is the most loving, decent, patient parent I have ever met. She has tried everything to bond with him. She quit her job to stay home with him 24/7 so he would bond. She signed them up for all sorts of classes together. She cooks. She does not smoke pot. She sits up talking with him at night when he can’t sleep. She loves him to death. And still, years of this much caring and love, he says he hates her. That he never bonded wit her. It breaks her heart. I was there and I saw the amount of work put into making sure this child felt loved. We all put that effort in. And we all love him despite him making stupid claims about my sister because we know he has issues that will never go away. My sister got him a therapy dog too, but they had to give it away because he abused the dog. She tried sports therapy, art therapy, bed sharing, etc. He still hates her and says he never bonded with her. So please spare your judgement and claims that we are defending Rosie because of her role in LGBT rights movement. That is absurd.
You simply don’t know the truth of it. But the fact that she was given up by a drug addict mother sounds terribly familiar to me. And when people question if my sister is a good mother, it breaks my heart. I was there, I am there. So I know.
I saw nothing in this interview to suggest Rosie being a negligent or abusive parent. Even if taken this whole interview as truth, I still saw nothing.
I actually don’t like Rosie BTW. So please don’t label my response as somehow related to her work with the gay community.
@SillySimone
So sorry to hear this story. A lot of people are not familiar with the terrible consequences to the baby of drug and/or alcohol exposure in the womb. The nervous system – meaning the brain – doesn’t develop properly, and it will affect both intellectual and emotional capability.
Sometimes we veer too far in our society on the side of “nurture” but there’s an awful lot of “nature” that goes into making a person too.
If you have an emotionally unstable child, would you send them away to go to school? I would not and I don’t beleive any of you would either. Emotional instability requires attention, love, and lots and lots of reassurance. Rosie shipped this poor girl off to boarding school every year since she was 12 yo. What does that tell you?
Simone, I get what you’re saying about bonding and drug affects, but the difference is your sister is extremely loving and patient. I would wager that Rosie is neither loving nor patient.
Well since I’ve dealt with a sibling who claims our parents were horrible yet the rest of us feel we had great parents.Coincidentally the sibling who claims she had a horrible childhood,is a drug addict and convicted felon.So I give other parents the benefit of the doubt when only 1 sibling claims they had neglectful parents.
I don’t necessarily side with Rosie, but when a teenager starts to complain about the abuse of being sent to your room with no electronics, I kind of zone out.
Ditto to what JenniferJustice said.
I agree with you JenniferJustice.
Fair enough. However, she should be tell her mom or a therapist this, not some rag.
How do we know that Rosie adopted only for PR-related reasons? And why assume that people are skeptical about this story out of loyalty to the LBGT community?
I don’t believe that this girl is lying or think that her feelings about not getting enough from Rosie are automatically invalid, but based on what she described I don’t think we’re looking at an example of terrible parenting and negligence/abuse if this is all we’re going on. It sounds like Rosie was an imperfect parent who could have been more nurturing and like mother and daughter had trouble getting along. And unless there’s more to her adoptive mother’s failings as a parent that she hasn’t let on, I don’t think her decision to run off with her birth mother and the 27-year-old rumored drug dealer should be blamed just on Rosie’s parenting. People think there’s probably more to what’s going on in this girl’s life than “my adoptive mother wasn’t nurturing enough”, although that probably didn’t help the situation.
JenniferJustice,
I am sorry to be harsh, but you don’t know what you are talking about. My nephew is not so violent that he has to be removed from his siblings. But my sister is part of the adoption community and has several adopted children. There are some kids with severe attachment issues who are so violent, that they cannot be kept in the home with their siblings for the safety of the other children. You can have all of the love and patience in the world, but if one of your children is trying to set your other children on fire, what would you do?
If, like Rosie, you had the money and the means by which to provide a safe and therapeutic environment for your child that also keeps your other children safe, what would you do?
Read this and tell me what one does with a violent and disturbed child? I suggest having a strong drink before you read it. I am not saying that Rosie’s daughter is for sure a RAD suffering child, but giving her bonding comments and her – out of all of the children – being sent away to a therapeutic school suggests that she is. Should Rosie have done this instead?
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/adoption/#article/part1
I completely agree with you Jennifer 100%
Holy crap! We’ve gone from assumptions this girl has RAD to now insinuating she is violent and a danger to her siblings. There is not one shred of proof of this young woman ever having been violent. She had depression issues. She said as much in other interviews. Perhaps sending a child with depression off to a boarding school might have had her best interests at heart so she could get therapy and go to school in the same place, but evidently being sent off to a school to live only made this particular child feel more abandoned and unwanted. I have known severl adopted children who didn’t bond with one or both of their adoptive parents, but none were violent or a danger to themselves or others. She certainly did not try to set her siblings on fire, so I don’t even understand why that would be provided as an example.
I don’t know what I would do if I had a child who was violent and a danger to my other children. If I had the money to send him/her to a therapuetic school, I might try that, but I dont’ think I would continue it if I knew my child was perceiving it as another form of abandonment. Being sent to a therapeutic school suggests the young lady has emotional problems and needs therapy. It does not suggest she is violent or dangerous. You are transferring other kids issues and facts onto this girl who has never been reported as dangerous or violent. There have been no stories of outbursts or fear for anybody’s physical well-being.
I work in the legal profession and I see what goes on in family courts. I stand by my assessment that Rosie’s house is dysfunctional. She is not capable of being the nurturing loving available parent that an emotionally distraught child needs. Maybe Rosie did have a geniune desire to help these kids when she adopted them, but she has not been there even when she is there and that’s what Chelsea is saying. I don’t think she cares that her adoptive mom likes arts and crafts or would care if she liked ball room dancing, but isolating herself to do her hobby when she knows she has a daughter craving her love and attention is selfish and callous. I like to paint ceramics, but if my kid needed me, the ceramics would quickly accrue a thick layer of dust.
ita
unless that person has parented you, you do not know what they are like as a parent. what you see on the surface isnt an accurate representation of life in their house.
Perhaps if she wasn’t a teenager living with a drug dealer she met on tinder we would be believing her story
Totally agree 1000 percent. To those that say being “distant and emotionally unavailable” is nit abuse….Uh, actually, it IS a form of abuse and it stands in a court of law as “alienation of affection.” It exists.
100% this. Well said. I feel nothing but compassion for Chelsey. It sounds like her family is broken and Rosie is unable or unwilling to be a loving parent. I don’t know what happened with Kelli but it’s a tragedy this young woman didn’t have a loving and nurturing childhood.
Well said. I’m baffled and disheartened by the vitriol toward the daughter as well. I don’t think she’ll be the last of the kids to act out and speak out
The daughter also said that she did not run away but that Rosie kicked her out with no money. Perhaps that’s why Rosie didn’t start looking for her or report her missing until four or five days had passed. Rosie is no freaking Saint, people.
Her whole interview is basically a teenager complaining about a normal life.
I thought there might be some shocking information in the daughter’s interview, but when I read it, I had more sympathy for Rosie and thought the daughter came away looking like a petulant, whiny teen.
I’m not saying Rosie doesn’t have issues, she’s never hidden them, but honestly most of what the daughter wrote solicited a major eyeroll from me.
And funny she doesn’t call out Kelly who was also responsible for her and who seems to have abandoned her completely. Kelly who she admits was right there when Rosie was being such a terrible mother and who she bonded with. Yet Kelli has re-married, and Chelsea hasn’t chosen to go live with her instead of Rosie.
Whiny, petulant teens are so self absorbed.
We all go through this phase. I know I did. And i’m sure I thought my mother was the worst when I was going through that phase.
And Rosie has a public persona….duh!!! So does everyone. Whose parents haven’t been different and shown a ‘public’ face to the neighbours?
Honestly!!
Since when is it normal for a mother to lock herself up and ignore her children, only order food instead of cook, call her child a problem and blast music all day while smoking weed?
If that’s normal to you then wow.
That’s if you believe Chelsea’s side of events. I don’t.
You are taking the word of a girl living with a heroin ex-addict supposedly and who is probably taking the snippets of her life that will put Rosie in a bad light and purposefully forgetting all the great parts of their life together, all in an effort to whine and paint Rosie as a bad mother and person. She only mentions Kelly in parts when it’s in an effort to bash Rosie. Half the time she acts like Kelly wasn’t even in her life when she raised her. It’s all too odd. And, no, I don’t believe this is a complete picture by any stretch of the imagination, just Chelsea with an agenda.
….this is a she said/she said situation ranting of a whiny teen. Of course she’s trying to paint the worst picture of Rosie.
In one sentence she says Rosie locked herself up and asked not to be disturbed and in another, a few paragraphs down she says they spent time with Rosie in the same space.
They had cooks, which she acknowledges in the fuller article. They also had a stay at home mom – Kelly who did most of the cooking.
She’s whining about Rosie never cooking despite the presence of a cook or the stay at home mom (Kelly) who cooks!!!!
Finally, Rosie has been very open about how she treats her own mental issues with art therapy. Sometimes in order to function, you need alone time. Fathers the world over spend time in their spaces that are sancrosanct, you don’t see grown adults whinying about the fact that dad spent time in his mancave for hours and that makes them a terrible parent.
She whines about Rosie objecting to her messing with boys, for sending her to 2 places that were equipped to deal with her emotional issues. She whines about the fact that her schools were too restrictive. She lied about her age on tinder and picked up a druggie boyfriend and can’t understand why Rosie (or any responsible person) would object to that.
Whine, whine, whine
Somebody give her a violin!!!!
I believe it’s at least close to the truth. Rosie isn’t a very nice woman. I really don’t doubt that she’s not been a very engaged mother. She seems the type who’s more into ‘winning’ than anything else. She’s attacked people on her talk show, she’s attacked people on the View, she’s had former staff say she was hell to work for. Multiple people have said she belittles people – and in general she’s always come off as a mean, unhappy person.
Sure, I can agree that the daughter is going for a bit of a shock angle, but I don’t doubt that there is truth to it. Just because she’s a teen doesn’t mean she dislikes her for no reason. I clashed with my mother. I would tell my friends about fights, and they’d only hear my side of things. But I’d never have gone to the media or even to another adult to complain about the things, because I knew my mother, although flawed, loved me more than anything else. And if anyone else bad mouthed her, there’d be hell to pay from me. But if I TRULY felt she didn’t care about being a parent, and saw her putting on a big show in public, I’d probably be tempted to do the same.
@KAY
Doesn’t Rosie have like 6 kids? None of whom are problem runaways with a penchant for befriending drug dealers and hiding in their attics.
Why are you so willing to believe one kid out of 6, especially when even in her sorry little tell all interview she’s done nothing but attempt to embarrass her mom by revealing her personal habits with food, weed and arts and crafts. This girl obviously did it for the money, as Rosie has probably rightfully cut her off.
Are you seriously attacking Rosie over this?! Wow.
The girl is not exactly painting a picture of Mommy Dearest. Get a grip.
I really see nothing wrong with a mother only ordering food in. Absolutely nothing.
I laughed at some of the stuff she was complaining about like “my mom has the audacity to be a mom!” but I also see her side of it and I actually agree with Erinn that Rosie seems like an extraordinarily difficult person to get along with. She doesn’t scream “affectionate, loving mother” to me.
I think she sounds like a whiny teenager with a disengaged, unpleasant mother. No winners here.
I also wanted to add that, how does anyone not know that perhaps a interviewer came to Chelsea to ask her, her side of the story? You know that things always get misinterpreted. Some things that she might have said were left out or changed.
I used to work with emotionally disturbed children and she does have many points to her story that gave me pause. Chelsea said that Rosie told her, her birth mother was on heroin, she found the birth records and her birth mother was not. That to me was heart breaking for this child.
She also said she bonded with Michelle and the other children. So, those factors give me some more food for thought. She could have anger towards Rosie still, but, I do believe that perhaps, the author of the story may have embellished parts for the readers.
I do not think that Rosie’s house is in good order and she may have bit off more than she could chew with adding so many children. Just my thoughts.
“My mom is awful cause she isn’t funny all the time, she grounds me, she can’t cook and don’t let me hang with drug dealers”.
Brought to you by the DM whose readers are told to be aghast at the mother who isn’t suzie homemaker. Oh the outrage!!!
Thank you!
Even if you take every single thing this girl said as true, Rosie O’Donnell still doesn’t come off too badly. So yes, she’s a non-perfect parent – which means she’s like everyone else.
I agree, I don’t buy this interview. And we know this girl is now broke with no way of supporting herself, so she needed money. There are no Joan Crawford revelations here that cause pearl-clutching.
THIS. How much did she get for this tell all interview? And isn’t she living with a drug dealer?
I really don’t see anything to call social services about. The daughter has diagnosed mental health issues and if she isn’t taking medication that is needed than that calls into question her view on how her home life was. I did find it a bit funny when she described her punishment of being sent to her room with no electronics! Oh the horror!
Yes I don’t get any feeling that Chelsea’s upbringing involved any real abuse. Honestly, it almost sounds like Rosie took on more of the traditional paternal role-provider, discipline but not really nurturing or always emotional present. Not great but not terrible.
I can fully believe Rosie is a difficult human being, but I’m not entirely convinced she is totally horrible. I remember reading about her oldest son’s interest in military history and he wanted to go to a military private school. Rosie, the hardcore anti-war liberal, sent him on her dime. With a little bit of eye-rolling, but she let him go. That doesn’t sound like a totally selfish person to me.
The quote about “See, you’re not the problem child anymore!” sounds SO like a mom… I can imagine my own mother saying that! Really.
Having depression or anxiety doesn’t mean your opinion can’t be trusted even if you are off your medication. That’s a ridiculous & ignorant thing to say.
She mentions in the interview that she lived with Kelly and her new wife between the ages of 13-17. Who knows why she moved back in with Rosie. I do find it interesting that she said Rosie and Kelly do not communicate and the new wife has to email Rosie to deal with the logistics of the children etc.
These were the ages when she was sent off to boarding school
Kelly and Rosie had joint custody. That means the decision to send her to that particular boarding school was made by both of them. If her problems with depression had surfaced by then, she could have been suicidal and her parents might have felt she needed both intensive therapy and good supervision. If her judgment about friends was as bad then as it is now, that might also have been a factor (an attempt to get her away from a dicey environment). If she was living with Kelly, I imagine it was especially Kelly’s decision that this was best for her.
It’s also possible that a judge was involved, if Chelsea got into any trouble with the law. Judges will give parents choices sometimes. This happened to a friend of mine with their son. The judge said it was either juvenile detention until he was 21, or military school. They felt the school was the lesser of two evils.
There are loads of possibilities why her parents decided to send her to boarding school even though she didn’t like it. But definitely both parents decided, not just Rosie.
Seriously! I agree with you. I’ve worked quite a bit with teenagers, and lots of them, ESPECIALLY girls in my experience, blame their mom for *everything*. And maybe some of it IS true – that doesn’t make it any less possible that Chelsea is a whiny brat. Not to mention that none of what she says outlines abusive behavior.
This is sad her daughter selling this story to the Daily Fail. The interview was odd anyway. Rosie supported the family and Kelly was the stay-at-home mom. She rarely addresses Kelly except when as a teen she went to live with her. Kelly is her mom and raised her up until twelve when she was sent to to a school. But she is so busy bashing Rosie, whom she is calling Rosie in the interview, that it’s obvious she wants to paint a bad picture, because she doesn’t mention Kelly in her stories of her younger years. It’s Rosie this, Rosie that, just intent on embarrassing her and bashing her in the story.
I’m not saying Rosie is perfect, but I think she loves her children deeply.. But this is a teenager now living with an ex heroin-addict and she isn’t working, just hanging out at his apartment waiting for him to get home and smoking out in the yard, hanging out. Maybe one day she will mature and she and Rosie can reconnect.
If the girl was in a boarding school between those ages, she was only at most spending vacations with Kelly. The divorce was probably quite hard on her, I imagine, especially with her other issues. But there was only a limited amount of time that she would be spending with either parent. She was living with Rosie when she ran off, maybe something happened with Kelly or her partner? Otherwise, if she felt so poorly matched with Rosie, why was she living with Rosie? Also if Chelsea had such limited time with Rosie, how does she know how Rosie was spending all her time? There are aspects of her story that seem a little wobbly. I don’t know her medical diagnosis, but it seems as though the Daily Mail is taking advantage of a very young person with difficult medical disorders who may also be skipping medication.
Chelsea is now living with the tinder drug dealer and his mom, and we’re actually meant to take her rant against Rosie as the truth? Now I can’t stand Rosie but even I can tell that there is some serious shit going on with Chelsea and not to believe all she is banging on about. Get some help girl, yo outta control!
Famous people adopting children like pets and then not wanting to care for them.
That’s not a nice thing to say, so famous people can’t be good parents?
So far I’ve not seen any of the kids on leashes.
Until you are in their shoes, don’t judge. Also, don’t believe everything you read. Again the truth is somewhere between what Rosie says and and Chelsea says.
Agreed. Three sides to every story and all that.
Not all famous people who adopt children do it for the PR value, but many do. There are other news outlets that quote Chelsea as saying she did not run away, bu that Rosie told her to “Get the f–k out and take your dog too!”
The other adopted kids are younger, so I do not find anything suspect in their not having complained about Rosie. They don’t have a voice yet and who would they tell anyway?
I continue to be baffled by the public’s response to this situation. While many teens are whiny and selfish, this teen in particular has documented emotional problems which to me, implies she needs attention and sensitivity and Rosie has the worst personality for a fragile child like that. More will come out in the future from the other kids, no doubt.
And yes, ordering food in on a constant basis besides being is lazy and makes some kids feel like they aren’t worth the effort -one more symptom of a bigger problem – that Rosie would rather be painting faces on silly dolls than doing something wholesome for her family, even just once in a while. They aren’t sitting down as a family to eat together. I’m not going to get into a debate about time and cooking and single mothers, but families and kids are affected by not only what they eat, but the way their family eats – they are factors in a family’s environment. I have always thought Rosie is a fake and not emotionally healthy herself. I’m waiting for the other kids to come forward when they’re old enough and find the courage.
It’s mostly because the logic doesn’t add up. Nobody has a special loyalty to Rosie but if you read something and someone says “So 2 + 3 = 7” a part of your brain stops and registers it as false.
This young lady had plenty of chances to explain herself back when the world was terrified she’d been kidnapped. She didn’t see any news? She couldn’t pick up a phone and make sure police didn’t waste their time on her when they could be searching for another lost person? She claims all faults of Rosie but doesn’t explain any of her own extreme and illogical actions and as others have said its right around the time her lack of finances are probably kicking in? Furthermore why doesn’t she mention Kelly? Why did she leave her house to move back in with Rosie if she was so distant?
The logic doesn’t add up. 2 + 3 doesn’t equal 7 and teenagers are rarely complimentary. Also, it kinda sounds like you have a grudge towards Rosie more than anything. At worst even her daughter described her as ‘distant’ and you’re over here hoping ‘the other children have the strength to come forward’. Lol.
Most of the comments here are kind of stunning to me, I genuinely thought I would scroll down and see something totally different. I’m not even a Rosie O’Donnel fan, but there is literally nothing she said that is even remotely out there or weird or abusive. From the viewpoint of an angry teenager lashing out, anything a parent does could be thrown out there as something negative. She can’t even say that she was really hurt in any way, Rosie honestly doesn’t sound that different than most parents I know. There clearly wasn’t any heavy partying, even though she claims her mother smoked weed and she smelled it, obviously there was some effort to deliberately keep that away from her children or she would have walked in on her mother at least a couple times, which I’m sure she would have mentioned.
I highly doubt with Rosie O’Donnels resources they ate nothing but takeout day in and day out, especially considering they have a cook on staff. And here’s a thought, even if they were….so what? Some moms just aren’t cooks, not every mom spends every day at a hot stove. That might really bother people but it’s in no possibly way, except the morally judgy reach, actually abusive or neglectful. just because you don’t agree with something doesn’t make it bad parenting.
Parents have other interests besides their children, which I know most don’t want to admit. NO parent spends 24 hours a day 7 days a week just
staring at their kids, we all have hobbies, friends, jobs, etc.
All we have to go off of are this girls words, which are hardly even incriminating. The very worst she can come up with is that Rosie pursued hobbies and wasn’t in her stage persona at home. All the tsk-tsking is kind of comical. I wish more parents were this “bad”
What the hell? The Jolie-Pitt kids seem incredibly happy to me. Mia Farrow adopted totally broken, abused, physically destroyed children. Yeah, let’s just let them die because someone adopting kids who happens to be famous is obviously going to be a bad parent. Wow!
It’s really painful for adoptive parents to hear this kind of harsh judgment. People in the public eye can want to be parents just as much as people out of the public eye, and some of them to it via adoption. Suddenly the adoption becomes the point of difference, not the celebrity.
Celebrity parents who grew their families biologically can trot out their kids and exploit them just the same (see: Kardashians).
It’s not about the way the kids joined the family; it’s about the way the parents approach parenting. Some parents see kids as accessories; others see kids as real dependents with real needs. We can KIND of tell the difference from the outside looking in, but none of us can ever know the full story.
Who Are We… I totally agree. Bio parents with mentally ill kids get pity. Adoptive parents are treated as the reason and get no support. It is terrible. And frankly, the reason these children need to be adopted is so they can get out of whatever horrible situation their bio parents put them in.
At some point, being passed around from home to home, adult to adult, abuse to abuse break a child. There is no cure for that. Add the addiction to drugs at birth and these kids have a very difficult time. To blame the people trying to help them in what has to be the most horrific situation is just shameful. It breaks my heart.
So it’s OK for non famous parents to adopt kids and treat them the same way?
Wow
Wow, @kay…this was the ugliest most prejudicial comment about people that adopt children I’ve read ever. Why so hateful?
My guess is there’s some superstar woman that you irrationally hate, Madonna, Angelina, Charlize etc., who you like inferring is a bad person and you think you’re being sly making broad negative generalizations that have no basis in fact or reality – and you’re using adopted children and some other unrelated celeb adoptive parent to do it. Am I right?
Not realizing that it’s a completely insane thing to do.
That’s like me hearing about Carol Burnett, Jeb Bush, Tom Hanks, Sly Stallone, Paul Newmans kids being drug addicts, and/or OD’ing and saying ‘famous people breeding like bunnies and then not wanting to care for them.’
It’s cruel and unusual disrespect for no reason.
I know there will be negative comments about Rosie in abundance here but I think she was a good mother. I listened to her on Sirius on a regular basis on my car radio and she definitely loved her kids. She worried about them and was concerned about their future. She praised their good qualities. She may not be lucky in love but she doesn’t deserve uninformed comments in the area of her parenting abilities.
Just to play devil’s advocate: you can love your children very deeply and still not be a particularly good parent. It’s also possible to be a great parent to one kid and not a great parent to another one. Different children with different personalities have different needs. Sometimes a parent just isn’t a great “fit” for a child. Doesn’t mean that Rosie doesn’t care deeply for Chelsea or that she’s not heartbroken or worried sick about her right now, but they seem to have an unhealthy dynamic.
Anytime I hear a person saying that they never really “connected” or “bonded” with a parent, it’s a red flag to me that something is very *off* with their relationship. I went through a terrible rebellious stage as a teen and put my parents through some sh*t yet remained incredibly close to them throughout. Never would I say that I didn’t “connect” with them.
God, this is so much truth right here.
Great post, and so true.
Absolutely, kitten! Spot on.
And I have to say, as an aside, that I draw the line at referring to a child with mental illness and obvious issues as a “whiny spoiled brat.” That’s not fair.
If Chelsea has anything close to the attachment disorder that afflicts some adopted children in particular – none of us would do very well as her parent. Plus she’s at the age when conflicts between parent and child loom large for most kids (Mother Nature’s way to make sure we fly the nest). I think we need to reserve judgment here. Nothing that she has said points to abuse. My mother served us godawful TV dinners (I still cringe at the very phrase Salisbury Steak, probably was a significant factor in my becoming vegetarian….) when she was too tired to cook and would have had takeout plenty of times if she had the money. She wasn’t a very good cook either in my opinion, although my brother thinks otherwise (he will eat anything that doesn’t eat him first, though). She had to leave us to our own devices when she was working a paying job in our teens, and before that she had to spend a lot of time In bed for medical reasons at various times (which was actually nice for me because I got to fix my own breakfast from an early age). That didn’t mean she didn’t love us or was neglecting us.
I have a hard time believing that Rosie was leaving her kids all alone while she did her artsy crafty stuff also. She didn’t have nannies? We know she’s had hired cooks who seem mysteriously absent from Chelsea’s memories.
This right here. I think everything Chelsea is saying is true. No one thing she lists proves Rosie is a horrible person, but it definitely shows Rosie was not the right kind of parent for this girl. That is noone’s fault. Chelsea is fragile and sensitive. Rosie is impatient and easily angered. She’s also a “yeller”. My sister and I have completely opposite personalities. If someone put me down as a kid, anybody, it made me mad and I was determined to prove them wrong. I was not needy, nor was I forgiving. I didn’t need other people’s praise to validate me. I only wanted to prove them wrong to show them up. If somebody said the exact same thing to my sister, who is older than me BTW, she would take it to heart, beleive it, be hurt, and it would affect her deeply. We had very different relationships with the same people. I am stronger, but she is kinder. A parent can have a different relationsip with each of their kids. This is the most I can stick up for Rosie.
Jennifer:
I am so glad that not having been there and not knowing actually what happened you are able to say with certainty that Rosie was not the right parent for Chelsea.
I, having not been there and not knowing the particulars can ONLY say two things with absolute certainty pertaining to this story and neither of them have anything to do with Rosie:
1. I am certain Chelsea has an attachment disorder like RAD
2. I am certain that the person to blame for her attachment disorder and other issues is her bio mother who was most certainly not the right person to have been Chelsea’s parent.
I have literally no proof that Rosie was a terrible parent. None. And from the sparse details we are provided, she does not sound like one. But by all means, keep attacking her.
That is all I can say without having been there. But I am so glad you can judge a mother from so far away.
Where’s that little therapy pup?
It’s with her. Pictures were in Daily Mail article.
I read the entire article and it seemed like even when Chelsea wanted to paint a horrible picture of Rosie as a mom, she couldn’t do it. So there’s clearly some conflicted emotions there on her side, which is pretty normal for an 18 year old. Some of the things she said (like Rosie dressing in comfy casual clothes all day) the magazine tried to make into a shocking revelation (“Rosie never gets dressed!”). Having been an 18 year old and knowing what that’s like (goodness knows what kind of interview I would have given after my mother grounded me from going to xyz party or made me finish my homework or whatever perceived slight I had to endure) and being a mom to early teens now, it’s pretty easy to read between the lines and see what is probably normal conflict, amplified by adoption issues, mental health issues and divorce. I’m sad for all of them, however; it is hard to go through these challenges in private, much worse in front of millions.
yeah, she’s describing slightly lackadaisical parenting but nothing even close to abuse or anything shocking. They were sent to their rooms? OMG Rosie is a monster! Rosie doesn’t cook? Oh you poor thing, your mother wasn’t a traditional housewife waiting at the door after school with fresh cookies. Neither was mine, I learned to cook (it’s not as if Rosie was failing to feed them, she just didn’t cook the food herself). Rosie gets tired after having to be “on” and “funny” when she goes out in public? What A Bad Mommy.
*eyeroll*
+1
This does just sound like petulant whining and exaggeration to me, too. I don’t doubt things could be tense or bad in the house, but what she’s saying is not a bad description (save the drug use. Assuming she’s telling the truth, I am an enormous prude about drug use around kids!).
She had to say SOMETHING to get paid by the Daily Mail.
Rosie may have cut off her expense money.
She wanted to leave the O’Donnell family home, so now she has to hustle.
Have fun w/ your loser dude honey….
You’re in for some actual reality.
Good luck.
Note that Chelsea says Rosie never smoked weed around the kids. My parents, on the other hand, like all other parents in the neighborhood, drank alcohol freely in front of us…. I didn’t like it because people do change when they drink even small amounts, and I picked up on the changes (being cold sober). Rosie may like weed, but she obviously is cautious around her children.
I went through a phase like this as a teen. I’m adopted too. I constantly told my mom, “You’re not my mother, you can’t tell me what to do.” Threatened to find my birth family and move out. It was a rebellious phase and I outgrew it. My “adoptive” mom and I are extremely close, so on hoping Chelsea will come around too. I’m not a big Rosie fan, but this sounds like typical teenage angst. Not sure why Chelsea isn’t living with Kelli though, she’s just as much Chelsea’s mother as Rosie.
Why does she need to “come around”? She’s been miserable for 18 years. It’s not a “phase” for everyone. And she’s not living with Kelli because she’s with her REAL mother.
The article says she is living with a drug dealer and His mother.
As an adoptee can I just add that it takes much more that giving birth to be a mother.
@Zapp, Thank you as another adoptee, I agree.
@Sochan Did you read the article? She’s living with her boyfriend in New Jersey, not her birth mother.
As for the REAL comment. Are you really that ignorant? My adoptive mom is my REAL mother. She raised me, changed my diapers, kissed my boo-boos, helped me with homework, drove me to after-school activities and loved me since I was two months old. That’s a mother. There is no “real” mother. There is your mother and your birth/bio mother.
This is why I lose my mind when the Daily Fail continues to call out the adopted and bio children of the Pitts. They are their children. End of story.
She went to “visit” her real mother for a week until she could get the restraining order or whatever it was lifted so she could go be with her loser boyfriend she met on Tinder. She also wants to meet her father, who her birth mother is against. Wait until that relationship implodes because Chelsea is reaching out to the birth father, whom the birth mother blames for everything. She is going to see the side of her birth mother that is ballistic because Chelsea isn’t going along with the plan, hatting Rosie and embracing her.
“REAL mother?” Seriously? She gave up her daughter (which was probably the best decision for her and her daughter).
Geez some of you people don’t even know how ignorant you are…
Implying that a child isn’t happy till theyre with their REAL parent implies a whole lot of children who haven’t been adopted are incomplete. Implying that the love of a parent who chooses to take in a child is worthless…that’s low.
@Sochan:
omg. I cannot BELIEVE you said that.
I have an adopted daughter.
From the beginning it was an open adoption.
She KNOWS her birthmother.
She LOVES her birthmother.
She VISITS her birthmother.
But I AM HER REAL MOTHER.
That explains the grimace/sneer she plasters on in lieu of an actual smile. All in all, her home life doesn’t sound that bad to me. I’ve known ppl who have experienced much worse (including me).
Keep burning bridges Chelsea. Rosie annoys me, but she didn’t sound that bad. Enjoy your new life with the ex drug dealer Chelsea.
She has the bridge on fire, doesn’t she? When the tabloid money runs dry, she’ll need to find a real job or beg Rosie for forgiveness (if she’s not in more trouble by then).
In all honesty Rosie doesn’t sound the worst to me. Just like an average mom w some extra cash. I’m 22 and when I moved for school however long ago and my mom basically said the same thing to her like “looks like you’re gonna be the child causing problems” kinda thing but not being serious whatsoever. Thats how I feel Rosie would’ve said/meant it.
I think I like Rosie so much from being a Drop Dead Diva fan…miss that show!
Trust me as one with experience in this: Chelsea didn’t hardly tell the whole story. Growing up with a dysfunctional parent is so pervasive and there are literally hundreds of ways they make a child miserable. When I was younger and in therapy I had so much to talk about but I always struggled with how to start the conversation and how to explain the hundreds of ways she made me miserable. I wasn’t beaten or sexually abused either. A person who hasn’t experienced this doesn’t understand how hard it is to explain it all. It is overwhelming. Ever seen those hoarding shows where a group goes to someone’s house and tries to help a clinically diagnosed hoarder sort through all their stuff, but all the hoarder can do is stand in the middle of mountains of stuff and complain about a coffee mug? A child from a dysfunctional home suffers the EMOTIONAL version of that.
I hope this helps give some perspective. It is hard for me to read someone saying “it doesn’t sound all that bad”. Trust me, it was bad. That kid was driven from her home by the sheer will to survive psychologically and emotionally.
Sochan: despite what I wrote upthread, I happen to have a toxic mother. In every way that is possible to be toxic without sexual/physical abuse, and I STILL had my moments when I acted out AND there were moments when my mother wasn’t being toxic.
The stuff this teen is whining about is nothing compared to what a truly toxic parent can inflict on a child.
Who are you to know what is important to Chelsea v. “nothing” compared to a truly toxic parent. People keep talking about her being a teen and teens are whiny, teens are angsty, dramatic, etc. Chelsea is not your average teen. She has emotional problems that require medication. She has depression and at one point, contemplated suicide. I don’t think we can compare her to the average teen. Whatever an average teen goes through, I imagine Chelsea’s issues are amplified. She is needy. Rosie didn’t give her what she needed which was herself (Rosie). She is a busy woman with a career in front of the camera, but she chooses that career and she chose to adopt several children.
As far as the support for Rosie having a public persona v. her real self, how would you feel if you felt you were treated like crap, unloved, unwanted, treated with impatience and anger just to see your mother waste her charm and kindness on strangers? Rosie is expected to be funny and she has to be “on” for the public, but I’ll bet that really hurts her daughter who wants her love and attention, only to see Rosie give the best of herself to people who don’t matter.
@ JenniferJustice
I appreciate what you’re saying. I’m not sure that a lot of commenters here will understand … or want to understand. Thank you for sticking up for the child in this story.
I made a mistake earlier and thought Chelsea was living with her bio mom. Apparently she is living with the drug-addicted BF and his mom. I will repeat what I said before: Children are not products of their own whims. They are products of parenting and environment. Chelsea’s behavior is extremely typical of a young person from a dysfunctional home. She is angry and frustrated and hurt. She has likely not had worthwhile guidance on how to form and keep relationships herself. When all is said and done I still blame Rosie.
It really bothers me that people see this girl’s leaving to be with an older drug-dealing man as shameful and so she must be a total loser, unappreciative, etc. instead of seeing it for what it is – she’s trying to escape. First she went to her bio mom, but apparently that didn’t work out b/c bio mom is remarried and has 4 kids living with her. So now Chelsea is with the Tinder dude. I’m betting she’s not happy there either, but in her mind, it’s better than whatever was happening at home with Rosie. She’s trying to escape and nobody considers that there is actually something happening or someone she needs to escape from in order to maintain her sanity. I’ve been there and I can relate. Maybe you can’t see it if you haven’t ever felt it.
Jenniferjustice: The teen has given us a ran down of what she considers terrible mothering. So, yes, I can judge whether that behaviour was anything like my toxic mother. And I can compare what she has said + what you have imagined is the various reasons or unmet needs to what my mother did and say that it barely scratches what my mother did to us.
There were a few moments where she seemed to back down and was ‘regular’ mother, but it coincided with my petulant teen phase so yes, I sassed her and she bit back. And i’m sure I complained about that, yet my complaints of those rare moments were nothing compared to what she did the other months/years. And I was too traumatised to complain about that.
I’m sure you’d love me to give you a ran down of her terrible behaviour to convince you because in your mind, this very shallow list of slights is the worst that could happen to a person.
It is not.
And clearly you’ve never met a truly terrible mother if this list is your barometer of terrible motherhood, even taking into consideration the girl’s extra emotional needs.
Sochan this analogy of the hoarder/coffee cup is brilliant! And sorry peeps, but even whiney teenagers don’t leave a “happy” or “functioning” home to go live with a drug dealer they met on Tinder. I also had a very unhappy home with a toxic mother. I came very close to marrying a 34 yr. old guy at 17 just to escape from my mother (thank GOD I didn’t do that!) and then ended up moving out anyway and living like a pauper just to be away from her. Rosie has shown her nasty side on tv before, so just imagine what she’s like behind closed doors.
She had to go to her room, with no electronics!!!!
I know right?? Seriously this whole paragraph ” For punishment, we were sent to our rooms, no electronics, not being allowed to hang out with friends.”. If you had half-decent parents you experienced this at some point. It’s called parenting!!
OK Chelsea, go work it out. Don’t OD, don’t marry him, don’t get pregnant. There’s still hope for you.
Yeah she basically said “For punishment I was ACTUALLY punished!”
Geez girl…how did you manage to survive?
It seems that every person in this scenario is a pure mess. I believe Rosie is a hostile personality due to poor behavior throughout the years. She seems to be at odds with everyone she has ever met. I honestly believe she is a nightmare to be with.
Chelsea seems to also have issues. But she is a teenager and she has to learn on her own by making her own mistakes.
Rosie on the other hand is an adult and loves to play the victim in public to bully or shame people into doing things her way. She comes across as a person who has to be right at all times.
Um, wow. Maybe Chelsea “has issues” from being raised by a crap mother and then watching her parents go through a divorce (maybe Kelli was the stable one and she lost that when they split). Children don’t get issues for no reason. Children are products of their parents and the home environment they grow up in.
Well why not move in with Kellie,since she is such a great parent?
We don’t know the Kelli side and we don’t know that Kelli “was so great” (who said she was??), so no sense even trying to come up with make-believe scenarios to explain it.
Really? You sound Sochan like you are having major projection issues and need some therapy. Do you know anything about RAD or children born of addicted parents? Many times they are unable to attach to loving parents and continue to push away love and security. Educate yourself
Well said mltp, attachment issues with adopted children are also well documented in spite of and regardless of any efforts made on the parents side.
Furthermore based on facts and figures this girl was raised the majority of time by Kelly. Now perhaps she wasn’t used to having two female parents but it does sound like Rosie became the ‘Dad’ and was the majority bread-winner while Kelly was the homemaker. If so why is the interview all about Rosie other than because she’s the actual big name?
Why did she move in with Kelly after their divorce only to move back in with Rosie?
Regarding the ‘attachment’/’bonding’ issues, in the larger interview, she talks about meeting her bio mother and bio relatives and her difficulty in their loving attitude towards her.
She further expands on this inability to form/cope with relationships by telling us that this was something her boarding school worked on, to help her learn how to form relationships and that she left the school having improved in this area…..
This poor child. Having Rosie O’Donnel for a mother would be enough trauma to screw you up for awhile. Never mind being adopted, being the child of famous people/lesbians, watching your parents divorce, having possibly inherited mental illness or addiction propensities, having your birth mother arrive back on the scene, etc. This girl’s got a lot of potential issues to hash out.
I know, right?? I’m very sensitive to stories of bad mothering and I can spot a crap parent from a mile away. I distinctly remember when Rosie first adopted I thought “I pity that poor child”. I genuinely pitied her. Now that child is grown up and ditching her “mother”. I totally saw it coming. I am happy for her!!
You’re happy she is living with a much older drug dealer she met on Tinder? Umm, okay.
@Sochan You are losing credibility with every successive post.
“Never mind being adopted, being the child of famous people/lesbians, watching your parents divorce, having possibly inherited mental illness or addiction propensities, having your birth mother arrive back on the scene, etc”
Let’s just take out the parts about “being adopted” and “being the child of lesbians,” and maybe “watching your parents divorce,” too. None of those have been found to be root causes of serious emotional or mental disorders.
Plenty of people have had to grapple with all of those things. Since when do your problems have to be the root cause of a mental condition to also cause you pain?
They can cause pain. Maybe I read into the comment overly much or went too fast, but wanted to avoid the impression that adoption or having same-sex parents are on a par with causes of mental illness (drug exposure in utero, genetic predisposition etc.).
This just seems like normal teenage complaining – My mom doesn’t cook, she drinks beer, she would punish us by sending us to our rooms. I don’t like her music. I mean, I’m sure that it is weird to have a celebrity parent who puts on a fake public face and is surly at home, and maybe there are deeper issues, but it is pretty strange to publish an interview like this.
Maybe Rosie wasn’t the perfect mom but she doesn’t sound that bad. In a way I think this reflects more badly on the kid who sold her mother out.
The real shame here is that the Daily Mail paid for the interview. They gave money to a young woman who is obviously in crisis and dealing with mental health issues and took advantage of her.
Honestly, this is not filled with shocking revelations. It doe sound like the usual anti-woman mommy bashing, because the best way to dismiss a woman is to call her a bad mother.
I was under the impression that Chelsea had gone to live with her birth mother? What happened there?
Also the comment that Rosie likes to ” to blast Madonna music, she is obsessed with her” At one time Madonna and Rosie seemed to be very good friends, but they seemed to have a falling out.
How interesting that the story is all Rosie this and Rosie that. Kelli Carpenter and Rosie shared equal custody of the kids and co-parent them. She barely mentions Kelli. If she was living with Kelli at 12, why doesn’t she blame her for being sent away to school? Oh, because Rosie’s name and bashing her is what sells the story. If Rosie kicked her out, which I don’t believe in the least, why didn’t she go stay with her other Mother? What about one of the nannies who she claims raised her, since they both live ten minutes away? That would make her claims more plausible, but no, she ran off to New Jersey to hide out at the house of her drug dealer, Tinder boyfriend, who sent a seventeen year old, photos of his penis. Then she went to stay with the birth Mother who has sold story after story to the tabloids, before heading back to the drug dealer. No one is a perfect parent, but Rosie and Kelli’s other kids seem to be thriving. Chelsea has long been troubled and it’s very sad that she’s being influenced by this 25 year old felon and his equally shady family. She’s making scary choices and I can’t imagine how hard this must be for Rosie, Kelli and her siblings.
Exactly. I thought the same thing when reading it regarding Kelli.
Because a tabloid is not going to pay for an interview about Kellie being a bad parent.$
I think the biggest crime here is Rosie being obsessed with listening to Chris Brown. I mean, ok with 1 or 2 songs once in a blue moon but constantly?
Meh, the girl is exaggerating. If you’ve ever followed Rosie before, and I have, she is passionate about music and brings up all kinds of artists she is currently obsessed with or talking about their music and promoting them to fans. Limited to two, Madonna and Chris Brown, nope. I don’t see it. She’s taking things out of context or condensing it to what she perceives and wants to put Rosie in a bad light. Has Rosie isolated herself at times? Absolutely. She has talked about bouts of debilitating depression, which I’m sure affected the children the times she went through them.
I believe there is an element of truth on both sides. Rosie has mental health issues which she acknowledges and her daughter Chelsea has mental health plus teenage angst.
I think any of the children have been through lots of ups and downs with Rosie’s issues, jobs, heart attack, divorces. It is going to impact them. Then you have the fact that Chelsea and the other children are adopted, what are the genes or substance abuse issues from the birth parents or mental health and special needs???
So many factors. And I want to look like I did as a TEEN but never have the immature brain that goes w it!
I am glad to see that the majority of people can see through all this BS. Thee girl runs away to live with drug dealer. Does a tell all for money and we should take her word. This young lady will regret this life she has chosen later and i suspect she will run back to Rosie.
“Then you have the fact that Chelsea and the other children are adopted, what are the genes or substance abuse issues from the birth parents or mental health and special needs???”
First, can we please couch the adoption as a past, one-time event shaping how she joined the family? Adoptees do not need this constant public definition as adoptees. They are who they are, uniquely. Adoption is not a trait. Second, it does seem likely there are special needs here. Those special needs can happen in all kinds of families. Even the best of parents can find themselves overwhelmed.
That drives me nuts on The Talk yesterday they kept talking about Tom Cruises’ ” adopted” daughter’s wedding.
Thanks Colette. We can send complaints to The Talk and any other program or media outlet that perpetuates this kind of “different class” or “second class” thinking about adoption.
Isn’t it strange this child would rather live with a drug pusher than with her birth mother. IMO, I’m thinking Rosie’s daughter was very difficult to live with. Teenagers are generally difficult, but can you imagine letting her adopted mother know she did not make a connection with her. No wonder Rosie was locking herself away in her art projects. I bet Rosie was not the most zen person to live with but I bet this girl was a piece of work.
Btw, Rosie must have had housekeepers and someone to cook for her family. I’m seeing someone who needed money and was getting paid for this interview. Good luck to her and her drug addict boyfriend.
No it is not strange at all. You know how many kids think it would be FUN to go play house with their boyfriend than live at home with their parents and follow the rules? Yeah.
Right? Teens can be terrible decision-makers, especially teens in love with older predatory men.
Sadly..I was one of those idiots…lol
Tanya: Yep
Jasper: Sorry to hear that… better now?
Clinical depression can make a person very difficult to live with, and both mother and daughter have the disease. My mother was a very nice person and loved us very much, but my undiagnosed brother with the disease caused many problems that baffled her and she didn’t know what to do about it although she tried a lot of unsuccessful ways. I got through adolescence just by reminding myself that I didn’t have to live with these people much longer…. My brother was unpredictably irritable and I felt like I was walking on eggshells to avoid triggering him. My mother developed anxiety issues herself and was hard for me to be around for that reason, it was as though she was broadcasting fear and anxiety at just the right frequency for me to pick up the signal loud and clear. (I have this problem with other anxious or even just ultra-high energy people.) Anyway, even though Chelsea was diagnosed and medicated, medication often has its limits and she could have been the center of quite a storm in her household without any ill intent. I don’t know how well controlled Rosie’s disease is, but even if she is well controlled with her kids – her daughter’s illness all by itself could make for an explosive relationship between them. There doesn’t have to be a villain in the piece, both could have been doing their best and things would still be difficult.
Chelsea is trying to burn all her bridges before she even knows what’s really on the other side, but I hope her parents just hang in there and wait it out. She’s 18 now and they can’t do anything else. Rosie was quite right to cut off the money, though – that’s the only chance Chelsea has of knowing who cares for her and who is there for the cash. She’s too young to even realize how inappropriate her “boyfriend’s” behavior has been, or to be properly cautious about her genetic relatives. Money has a peculiar effect on people.
Surprised by people putting this kid down. A parent who doesn’t engage, who isn’t present, who has a dual personality is pretty detrimental. She moved in with the drug dealer because she can ignore her problems with him. She’s a kid, so she had no problem giving an interview on her crazy adoptive mother who says shit like ‘you’re not the problem child anymore’. Rosie has her own set of issues that she didn’t address before becoming a mother. As a mom with mental health issues, it was pretty important to me to have ownership of that before my daughter was born. It didn’t happen overnight, and it’s a lifelong battle, but if I act out (which is clearly what Rosie does ‘IM THE MOM LISTEN TO MEEEE’) I find the place it came from and I talk to my 6 year old about how it’s not acceptable for me to lose it and not address it. Or for me to tell her she’s the problem. I hope someone actually cares enough about this girl to get her out of the situation she’s in, but at 18, it’s kind of up to her to find bottom and work her way up.
This.
While I do agree Rosie has probably got issues galore I just don’t see the smoking gun you know? We all have different levels of expectations in life and Chelsea was adopted young but when I see kids like Baby Bella who end up in garbage bags dead and abandoned I don’t feel…I sympathize with Chelsea but I also think a part of her doesn’t fully realize there’s life outside mansions and millions.
If she complained about abuse or severe detachment, or if she even mentioned Kelli at all, but the entire interview is about how Rosie ruined her life because she needed a room to decompress (as a mom with mental health struggles I’m sure you also have a coping mechanism that allows you to be away from your kids momentarily while you regain your strength) and she rarely cooked (but she doesn’t say she went hungry). Just seems like a teen who didn’t have her perfect mom and is frustrated by it but doesn’t really have anything to claim as abuse.
Raising children is the hardest work anyone will ever do! It’s like driving blind, because each child may need different things. Sure, there are “child experts” to help guide a parent, but it’s still a scary thing. You don’t want to screw up this tiny human being that you love so much. Unfortunately, we aren’t all perfect parents. And some people are downright horrible and should NEVER have the privilege of raising kids. I love my kids more than anything! I would give my life for my children! Was I always a perfect parent, absolutely not, and sometimes, I would say I was a pretty lousy parent, especially when going through fighting and breaking up with their Dad. We were no Jen Garner/Ben Affleck. We screamed at each other in front of the kids, called each other names, etc. (hanging my head in shame)…I went through depression and anxiety, and I know it affected my kids…Do I wish I could turn back time and do things differently, you bet I do…I’m sure Rosie loves her kids, and I’m sure it is breaking her heart to hear Chelsea tell the world how she feels about her…I believe that Chelsea has some mental health issues, and I hope that this druggie boyfriend doesn’t do anything to hurt her (wishful thinking)!
I bet your kids forget a good amount of that sh*t. My mom always laments about the stuff she did wrong and will bring it up to me as an adult like “did this affect you?” and I don’t remember 80% of the stuff she’s talking about. I mainly remember all the good things she did (and continues to do) for me.
Someone told me, “They say if you get 70% of it right as a parent, you’re doing well.”
I just wanted to say I adore every comment in this entire thread, I think good parenting comes from a good heart and a willingness to keep trying everyday. None of us are perfect (I already know my limits, lol, and I don’t have kids) but if you can just keep trying…?
That’s worth a lot.
Aw, MrsBPitt, being human and showing your kids that you’re human doesn’t make you a bad parent. Your kids know you love them, and that’s what matters. My parents never fought in front of us or even disagreed in front of us, and honestly, I know that came from good intentions, but in my own relationships, I was terrified if I felt anger towards my partner or he towards me. I thought if you loved each other, you didn’t get angry with one another. It took me a long time to work that out. My point is, they did what everybody said they should, and it still screwed me up. Lol. I bet anything your kids would tell us you’re a great mom.
You all made me cry and feel so much better….and GNAT, my parents were the same way. They never, ever fought in front of us kids, so when I got married and my husband and I would have a fight, I thought “this is it, it’s over”…I didn’t know how to handle it! Especially, since his folks fought all the time, and, I guess that’s how he thought marriage was supposed to be…lol…It’s amazing that anyone gets it right in this crazy world!!
It couldn’t have been easy growing up around Rosie’s personality. Sounds like this girl has mental issues and needs help.
the rest of the article mentions how she suffered from anxiety/depression growing up and was sent away for many years to a therapeutic boarding school and she resented being sent away from her siblings during her childhood because the other kids grew up together.
I dont know why CB didn’t include that part because to me, that says a lot more about why this girl ran away in search of other people than the fact Rosie brought home chinese food and had an art house.
She may have been sent away to a therapeutic school designed to help kids with violent outbursts, common in RAD kids – for the safety of the other kids.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/reactive-attachment-disorder/basics/definition/con-20032126
@SillySimone
Good point. The girl may lack insight into her own problems IF she suffers with RAD and other disabilities that may contribute to a more shallow understanding of herself and the world.
I think that it’s very possible that everything Chelsea said could be true, and that still wouldn’t necessarily mean that Rosie is/was a bad mother. I have a brother with issues similar to those that Chelsea seems to have, and there are definitely times when my parents just have no idea what to do with him. As much as they love him, they sometimes need to withdraw for the sake of their own health. And while this didn’t happen in my family, I can absolutely understand using marijuana to relieve the stress that’s inevitably caused by these situations. There are definitely 2 sides to this story, and right now, it looks sad all around. I hope they’re eventually able to smooth things over.
Rosie a hypocrite: No celebrity shows us their real self when they’re out in the world. They all have a celebrity personality and a home personality. You think you really know how Nicole Kidman acts, or Jake Gyllenhaal? So this is a non issue.
Home life, food: I’d bet that many parents in America either order all their food or just reheat frozen food from the grocery store. This is an obese country, we just don’t know how to be healthy, and some of us don’t have the time to cook. So this is another non issue only because it’s very common not because it’s right. We should all learn to eat healthily but we don’t, which is why we have such a high rate of obesity.
Hobbies: Everyone needs hobbies and time alone from their kids, spouses, whatever, to regroup and refresh. I can’t tell if she’s being truthful about it being all the time or not.
Temper: So no one on here yelled at their kids? Or your parents didn’t yell at you? No one punishes their kids by taking away their electronics? Or by taking away their going out privileges? Seems completely normal to me.
Pretty much everything you said. I always think of Martha Stewart and how her kids say they didn’t get any of that home sewn hand wrapped housekeeping and cooking in the house while she did it for the show.
If I do something for work everyday I’m sorry I’m not doing it at home. I cook all year, don’t talk to me on Thanksgiving.
Having started to dip my toe in the adoption process and talking to our resource person about adopting, this girl is lucky she was adopted by a caring mother who had the means to support her. I may not like Rosie, but she adopted children that needed a home. Not many people do that. Just from talking about the “legally free” children ready to be adopted and the homes that they came from, people need to give Rosie a break. It’s not all flowers and butterflies, these kids can come from major abuse and the work it takes to assimilate them into your home is huge. I am not even talking about foster kids here. That is a whole other process. These “legally free” children can be placed with many different ‘adoptable’ homes that do not work out. So by the time you are matched, your adopted child could have been placed in 5 homes or more. That is a lot of stress for everyone. I give Rosie props for being a parent/mom to her and I don’t put much thought into what her daughter says .
By adoption laws Rosie is not eligible to adopt.
Really? What laws would those be? Don’t you think the authorities would have been all over her if the adoptions were not legal, given her status as a public figure?
Good for you for looking into the adoption process. It is hard but rewarding. I can’t hate on Rosie for the same reason’s as you. My husband and I adopted a little girl from the foster care system. She came to live with us when she was 7 1/2(not legally free yet) , she had been in foster care since she was 1 1/2 and our home was her 8th (!!!) placement. We were finally able to adopt her when she was 10. She is amazing and wonderful, smart and beautiful, and 12 years old now. It took tons of patience and therapy (for all of us) and lots of tears and some yelling and massive hugs for us to get to the place we are now. And yet I know how fragile it all can be.
I’m so happy to hear your story worked out, congratulations and good luck to you and your family.
@ Sar
Well said and good luck to you and your husband. You’re absolutely right it’s not easy at all but it does take a special kind of courage and compassion. Sadly it can be a muddled process for the children with some families not working out but it’s just one of the things that has to be accepted.
Rosie adopted Chelsea when she was only two months old. She had no other adopted or foster families before Rosie, so that is not an issue.
And if you know that you might be adopting kids who have suffered abuse, drug addiction, etc. wouldn’t you ponder whether your career of choice is a good fit for adopting children? Damaged children need more attention and love than children who have not suffered or been damaged, so it seems outlandish to think you could give them what they need if your career is demanding. Too many people put too much weight into Rosie being able to provide financially, when what these kids need, especially Chelsea, is Rosie’s time and attention. Hobbies are good and healthy, but when you have kids that are obviously more needy than others, sorry, but your hobbies take the back burner.
Lastly, I am an avid supporter of legalizing marijuana for many reasons. But doing it around your kids or even in their home where they smell it and know what you’re doing and you don’t have a license to legitimize your use of it, is wrong.
Every couple I have ever known who adopted children had to go through a gruelling process proving what kind of people they are, what their home environment is like, who all will be involved, letters from friends and family testifying to their character and capability. Rosie bypassed all of that. She PAID big money and bought a bunch of kids. I don’t buy into the whole “well, they are better off with her than where they were or growing up in an orphanage.” We don’t know that. If Rosie hadn’t adopted them, whose to say a better equipped family might not have adopted them? That’s a whole lot of assumption and the aristocracy tacked onto Rosie being a good parent is majorly confusing to me. Just because a person can afford a child does not mean they will be a good parent. If I were in a position to represent the children to be adopted, Rosie would never have made my list as a prospective parent. She has never had a long-term stable relationship. She is dominating and dramatic, overly demonstrative, loud, hostile, crass, has a career demanding too much time away, too much travel, too little of herself left to give a child, let alone needy children. The only reason she was able to adopt and so many, is because she is rich, intimidating, and would have kicked up a fuss about being descriminated against due to her sexual orientation. Before anybody argues that, please provide me with the name of even one non-celebrity person you know personally who has even a few of the traits listed above who was granted a child through a formal adoption process. There are none because they dont’ exist. The requirements are completely different regarding regular folks v. hollywood folks. They do not meet the criteria but are allowed to buy the children.
Jennifer:
“Rosie adopted Chelsea when she was only two months old. She had no other adopted or foster families before Rosie, so that is not an issue.”
That comment right there shows you do not know what you are talking about. Why do you think newborns are held skin to skin (mother nude from waist up and baby in diapers)? Why do you think baby’s are straight away handed to mothers after birth?
Attachment starts right at birth. The lack of that maternal contact during the first two months can and does cause RAD. Add to that that the mother had an opiate in her system throughout her pregnancy and you are going to get serious issues with the child.
You keep posting in defense of this young woman, which is great. What I have a problem with is that you are posting against the mother who adopted her. I am not attacking this young girl. My heart breaks for her and her mother. But given what is in that article and the attachment issues she keeps talking about, it is clear that she has an attachment disorder. She may not even understand it.
So stop attacking this mother and claiming she bought the children as though she was somehow a horrible and abusive parent like Joan Crawford. You have no idea what went on, none. But you are attacking a woman who may very well have been dealing with a no win situation. Just give it a break already.
Well she did tell the truth about her mothers drug use. Weed is a drug. I do not care if it is legal. Raising children (6) while a drug is involved is a big concern. Than throw in her mental health issues and alcohol.
Rosie is still a parent even with whomever she employs or marries/lives with who also raises her/their children.
oh wait is doesn’t matter due to her wealth all the adoption laws that the majority of us live by do not apply to Rosie. Drugs are not an acceptable excuse for a child with any label.
She stated Rose never smoked weed in front of the kids. So if she smoked a joint to relax after the kids went to bed, then who cares? Why is weed somehow equated with cocaine or hard drugs. It is akin to having a glass of wine or a beer to unwind after the kids go to bed. I see nothing wrong with it.
This has nothing to do with wealth. How often do you hear people beating their kids because they had a joint? Can you name one? What about RX drugs? What about alcohol? I bet you can name a bunch.
This does not make her a bad mother and claiming that this does is really puritanical.
Chealsea knows drugs is not acceptable for her mother to use, marijuana. However, she is living with a drug addict, heroin user. Anyone wants to bet she is not using hard drugs at this time. Shame on her for trying to bring down Rosie/her mother, for smoking marijuana, and I bet it’s for money to give to her drug addict boyfriend. I see she is not making great choices in her life and she knows better.
Marijuana is not a drug. It’s an herb that grows out of the ground naturally. Just because of a stupid law that declares it a “drug” doesn’t mean it’s the truth. How many laws have Americans been subjected to for the past 300 years that eventually got shown for the absurdity that they were and over-turned? Prohibition? Slavery? Abortion (in some opinions)? Inter-racial marriage? One day marijuana will be legal across the board the same as beer and wine, and our grandchildren will laugh when we tell them how people hid joints in jars of peanut butter to board a plane.
Thankfully, my city recently made it legal inside of private homes and I can now happily toke up after a long day of work. Does wonders for my migraines, too. I am grateful!
Word.
I agree with most of what you say about pot, but the fact is, it is still illegal and Rosie does not have medical marijuana license to use it legally. So, she is breaking the law. We can’t tell our kids to follow the law and then pick and choose which laws we choose to follow no matter how absurd a law might be. I’m pretty sure Rosie has a large home and on a large lot. Why can’t she go outside and smoke her pot or do it in the garage like the rest of us? There is no reason for her to be doing it in her kids’ home where they smell it. And like or not, pot is a drug. It’s a plant, but the plant contains drugs – THC. it is a somewhat mild drug and I don’t find it any different than a beer or glass of wine, in fact less harmful because it doesn’t have a violent effect. I want it legalized across the board too, but I don’t think down-playing it or pretending it’s not what it is is an effective means of garnering acceptance of it as a recreational drug. PCP comes from Poppies. Poppies are a plant too, but PCP is definitely a drug. Payote is a fungus and is definitely a drug. Don’t downplay a drug as simply being a plant. The opposers will chew you up and spit you out. Be honest about what pot is because even though it is a plant that contains a drug, it is a mild drug and not nearly as dangerous as alcohol which is already legal. That should be our argument for the national legalization of marijuana.
Dude I could not have gotten through the past month without weed and yes, I’m aware that I’ve been self-medicating to a degree. I only smoke a bowl before I go to sleep at night, I don’t abuse it–I give myself limitations. But it helps me find a peacefulness and a level of relaxation that I cannot achieve on my own and it calms me in a way that alcohol cannot.
In the end, it’s still better than taking a Xanax IMO.
I dislike Rosie strongly, but I will not fault her for smoking marijuana. As a high-strung person prone to extreme anxiety, marijuana is truly a life-saver.
@Jennifer- I do appreciate what you said here though—and all of your comments on this thread actually. It bums me out how many people are trashing this girl and I say “girl” because she’s barely 18. I just don’t think a teenager who isn’t seeking the limelight should be judged like this–seems really unfair to me.
1. She may have not have bonded with Rosie (or anyone else for that matter) because she may have had RAD after being with her drug using bio mom. My nephew, who is adopted has RAD, and no matter how loving and patient my sister is, he still says he hates her. It is heart-breaking to watch.
2. If her gripes about punishment are a time out, getting your electronics taken away, and being sent to her room, then wow… seriously?
3. I am not a Rosie fan, but I am siding with Rosie here. I would like to bash this girl as a typical ass teen, but I do think she has real and severe mental problems and probably stemming from RAD. Notice she is not with her bio mom either, probably because Rosie locked down the trust fund when Chelsea went to live with her.
Courtney Love is a bad mother. Joan Crawford was a bad mother. Rosie sounds like a typical – if a bit eccentric – loving mom to me.
It may be something like bipolar disorder, too, it might not even be RAD.
My sympathies to your sister – I can’t imagine what that is like.
Thanks JC, it is heart breaking to watch. We all cry about it because he is so loved and so wanted, by all of us. I wish he could heal from his earlier struggles and enjoy us and we him. Not so:(
It is typical age when a 17 year old girl hates her mom. Mother- daughter relationships during the teen years can be rough. The thing to remember for Mom is to remain the adult and mature one and in turn the teen girls become young women and need their mom.
Did she beat you for using wire hangers? Move over mommie dearest. Sounds like this girl has a lot of anger.
She may be exaggerating but Rosie is toxic and she can love her kids and still be a bad parent. There’s a reason she’s been married, what is it, 3 times?
I agree that one can love their kids and be a bad parent. But I saw nothing in these disclosures to suggest a bad parent. An eccentric? Yes. A public figure struggling with her public image? Yes. A bad parent? No. Courtney Love is a bad parent. There is a good example of someone loving their child but not being a good parent.
Couldn’t agree more. Not feeding your kids at all. Bad parent. Feeding them takeout (they are fed) a good parent. Hanging out in her studio… public vs private. Thats not a reflection of bad parenting. Short tempered – sure, its an issue but not bad parenting. Main issue: your kid trying to purposely hurt you by selling there story to DM. RED FLAG.
Much like Christie Brinkley who has also been married three times.
I was expecting something more damning tbh. Eating take out all the time is not good, neither is spending more time on your hobbies than with your kids but it feels a little . . . I dunno exaggerated. That teenage perspective of OMG my mom is the worst. She won’t let me hang out with bad company. I can’t do whatever I want, whenever I want.
Yeah I kept reading down kinds holding my breath like, “Okay it’s coming…next…okay next…okay and that’s the end?”
It honestly sounds like my parents when they were going through their hardest years working two jobs and trying to start a new business. I was too young to cook so there was a lot of take out for a long time (which as a kid I loved, lol) but seriously food was given. I was fed. It wasn’t a crisis.
Honestly, sounds like a mother daughter struggling as most mother daughters do in these years. Some worse than others. Her issues made me think decades later, she’ll regret making this public and the things she said just like I’m sure Rosie regrets things she did. But nothing here is horrible… It all sounds like overt coming of age – i don’t get along with my mom issues. I think this one needs prayer on all sides. Sounds like a daughter intent on hurting her mother because maybe she’s hurt. But regrets later, i’m sure of it.This is a personal matter. Not for the public.
She is living is the town I live in now! So weird to see pics of her coming out of my Rite Aid on the daily mail. Strange thing is, where did those paparazzi pics come from? There is no paparazzi here ..I doubt any one in town would care about her presence here. We need all the GOOD press we can get. Not this drama…
Daily Mail sent their reporter and photographs to do the story and they paid her for the interview.
Sorry I meant from a previous article. The pics from the interview were definitely planned. There were other pics of her with the guys mom walking out of a store and her leaving a 7 11 that she definitely did not pose for. I just thought it was interesting the boyfriend wasn’t in any of those pics and they were sold to a tabloid that reported she had left the biological mothers house and moved to Jersey. Can’t find the article now but there was no interview. I just hope he isn’t using her…
As a 43 year old who was once an angry teenager, I just feel for Mrs. O’Donnell. I remember thinking everything was “fake” and that my mother didn’t get me (I also thought she was actively trying to ruin my life). I am guessing the child, in a number of years, with some perspective will feel differently, but I just hate this for her mother.
Especially b/c all of the “accusations” from this child are…. not surprising and not incriminating. Wow- she’s a comedian who is “on” in public, and she can’t cook. Shocking.
I hope the child gets some counseling and doesn’t spiral downward into drugs and a miserable, angry life.
My mom used to punish me and ask me for candy. She sent me to my room and restricted my privileges. As a celebrity, she was different with fans than at home. She has intimacy issues and likes to spend a lot of time alone.
Yes, and? I’m still waiting for the trauma that turns a kid into a runaway and an addict. It ain’t in this story.
It is possible that Kelli relinquished custody/visitation as part of the divorce agreement. Harsh but not unheard of, especially when the financial power within the couple is very lopsided.
I agree that Reactive Affective Disorder may be one of Chelsea’s problems. My neighbors experienced this with an adopted child & it’s agonizing. It usually stems from experiences which occurred before any adoption took place.
No if you follow Rosie you know Kelli still has joint custody.Blake was with her in August.
You ran away from a home that had another house full of arts and crafts?! Crazy.
Well who can live in a house full of scrapbooks and collage boxes? They are like roaches and rats.
Rosie didn’t call the police about whom she labeled a runaway until days to a week after Chelsea left. Iirc, she then posted a photo of a couple of her other children with their friends at an amusement park either on a day Chelsea was still missing or was finally found. Who goes to an amusement park when you say your kid is missing?
I think some people here haven’t read the whole DM interview.
-Rosie sent Chelsea away from the time she was 12 to 17 years old. First to the first wife’s home (Kelli) where Rosie wouldn’t contact Chelsea, then to a Utah boarding school at the age of 13 until 15. Rosie didn’t show up at the graduation, though Kelli, her wife Anne, and two of the siblings did. Then Chelsea was sent to another boarding school until she was 17.
– At home, Chelsea was raised mainly by various nannies, because Rosie was more preoccupied with her own interests instead of spending that time engaging with the kids.
– Rosie told Chelsea that she was born with heroin withdrawal, even though the hospital records show that she was a 9 out of 10 on the Apgar score and that there was nothing in her system and her tests came back clean.
– Chelsea says that she didn’t runaway but that she was kicked out of the house two weeks before her 18th birthday and told to take her dog with her but to leave her phone and computer.
– Rosie claimed that Chelsea is mentally ill and in need of meds. Chelsea says those public claims were hurtful and that what she actually has is depression and anxiety that started with her parents’ breakup and that it’s gotten a lot better.’
– Chelsea feels that Rosie’s public statements about her as a runaway and mentally ill were done only to hide the truth that Rosie kicked out her minor child out of the house.
– She lives with her boyfriend and his parents, and he has a job.
– Rosie has since texted Chelsea calling her a “cash cow” though she doesn’t provide Chelsea with any financial support.
There’s more in the interview.
Why did she leave a birth mother’s house?
Why didn’t she move in with her other mother,Kellie?
The answer is in the article.
It says that Chelsea and her boyfriend are planning to move to Wisconsin soon, where her biological mother Deanna and her extended family live.
She says she and Deanna talk almost every day and that she feels happier about knowing and getting close to her Wisconsin relatives.
I don’t think Kelli lives in Wisconsin.
I forgot to mention that after Chelsea went with the police back to Rosie’s house:
“A happy reunion with Rosie was not waiting for her, Chelsea claims.
‘She had two of my bags packed with clothes. Literally ten minutes after the police had dropped me off at the house, I got in a car and went to a friend’s house.”
Ten minutes and her bags were already packed for her…
Why didn’t she contact the police and media herself when she saw she’d been reported missing? Why did police have to find her in anyone’s home and bring her back when cell phone or not she had the means to stop the whole charade?
According to her boyfriend he didn’t even know she wasn’t of legal age so there’s already some discrepancy between what she tells people and what the actual truth is and I can’t get over her doing nothing while resources were wasted looking for her if she claims the whole thing was a ruse by Rosie.
Again, the answer is in the article.
She says she was kicked out of the house on August 11th, Tuesday, about two weeks before her 18th birthday (August 24th) at which date she was going to leave anyways.
As I stated above, she says Rosie told her to leave her phone and computer at the house but to take her dog with her.
The same day, her boyfriend gave her a phone with which she contacted her family:
“Police said in a statement that Chelsea had used an unknown cell phone to contact her family from August 11 because the teen did not have her own phone or computer with her.” – DM
(On August 16th, Sunday, Rosie [finally] reported a ‘missing’ child to the police. – People)
(Then on August 18th, Tuesday, Rosie made a public plea to find Chelsea and reported hours later that she was ‘found.’ – NY Daily News
On August 18th, the DM has a photo and caption reading:
“Rosie took her son Blake (far left) and daughter Vivienne (second from right) to an amusement park with friends on Monday.”
– which means that Chelsea was still ‘missing’ when Rosie’s trip to the amusement park was made.)
“Chelsea was found by police on August 18 at Sheerer’s home and she went with them willingly.
‘Rosie said that I was missing and I had run away and had me brought home,’ Chelsea said.
‘I knew the police were looking for me from the news and I was hoping to get home first, so it wouldn’t be this big deal. The police were nice though and they brought me back to Nyack.” – DM
And I wrote about the reception upthread – see the mention of the ten minutes and Rosie having Chelsea’s bags packed with clothes.
So, unless it was made public news from Sunday when Rosie reported her missing and until Rosie made it public on Tuesday, how would Chelsea know she was reported missing?
I did a google search and there’s no news that I can see of Rosie missing a child on August 16th and 17th.
From the NY Daily News article, it was within only hours after Rosie’s Tuesday social media posting that Chelsea and the police got into contact with each other.
I think it would be helpful to have actually read the DM interview and google the relevant dates and timeline and news from that time.
Tbh that sounds like a child with very poor critical thinking skills.
I remember myself when she was reported missing via multiple media sources regardless of when she claims she was kicked out. She claims she wanted to go home so it wouldn’t be a big deal but it was quite clearly a big deal already at that point.
Privately calling the police and telling them where she was and her circumstances would have been a lot safer and more discrete than waiting for when she was found merely hoping she could go home and smooth things over. Especially when she states what a poor relationship she’s had with her mother for her entire life.
Obviously by that point the media was all over it and again that doesn’t explain lying to the Tinder boyfriend and putting him in a position where he was arrested for her lies.
I posted this answer in one of my posts.
Also, google is easy to use. There are no news articles about a missing child of Rosie’s until the 18th.
The only time it made the news was when Rosie posted something on her social media – which was on the 18th.
So criticizing that on one hand, Chelsea should have reacted to the media reports (when the reaction was within hours of Rosie’s post) at the same time excusing that Rosie shouldn’t need to make media posts is contradictory.
It’s not Chelsea’s account that she left the house on the 11th. That is stated by not only her, but the police and by Rosie/her family.
Also, the police have told the media that the family told them that they had contact with Chelsea during the period they stated she was missing. – CNN 8.20.15
I mention this tidbit in a post that is still being moderated.
It’s easy to google and find news about this and to read them.
Sadly news stories don’t always cover the full story and what you don’t seem to have an answer for is Chelsea’s own predilection for lying or grandstanding.
I understand you’re defending Chelsea and I could even agree that perhaps she didn’t have enough time to react but – according to your own words she did eventually become aware of the media hoopla was occurring. Going with your own suggestion and Chelsea’s words that she 1. Was kicked out and had a negative relationship with her mother 2. Was hoping she’d return home and cover for some of the drama and 3. Knew she was underage and hanging out with a guy who didn’t know her full age and would be legally liable then when she did become aware – which by your own words she did at some point – why did she not make the simple, logical, common sense decision to call the police.
In doing so she could have met them at a neutral location protecting her boyfriend. She could have put the onus on Rosie and made police aware of the fact this was a form of domestic disturbance and not her being kidnapped.
Anne: This all must be true, right? Really?
Missing:
Maybe Rosie did not call the police because she thought her daughter, who was nearly an adult was staying in one place, but found out later that she was not there? Ever lie to your mom and say you were going to a friends house but went to your boyfriend’s house instead?
Hospital Records:
Well she says the hospital records say this. Ok, where are they? I mean if one is going to make these absurd claims, then they should put up the proof, right? And frankly, if her bio mother was on heroine during her pregnancy – and we know she was – then how is it possible this child was not affected? My nephew was a crack baby. He knows he was because my sister had to explain to him why he has some continuing medical problems. Perhaps Rosie explained this to her daughter to explain some of her issues?
Being Kicked Out:
So she kicked her out but then issued a public search for her? Why? No one would know that Chelsea was missing/kicked out had Rosie not made that public plea. So why would Rosie need to cover up kicking out her kid when no one knew her kid was even missing?
Depression:
Is a mental illness and if my child was depressed and went missing, I would make sure to note that to the public because I would be afraid she would try to harm herself.
I can’t anymore with this crap. My adopted nephew (who has RAD) spent the day with me. We had a blast (I thought). I took him to an amusement park. I took him out to eat. We played with mechanical cars at my house for hours. Then I took him home. I found out later that he told anyone who would listen that I hit him, that I yelled at him, that I refused to feed him, and that I made him leave early/kicked him out. Of course no one believed him because he hates everyone and lies about this kind of stuff all of the time. Yeah, I would have liked to have packed his bags at that point too.
My goodness, can you please just acknowledge the possibility that you actually don’t know what happened and what the truth is before you throw around these claims as gospel? It breaks my heart for the child and the mother.
I’ll be happy to talk to you about the timeline I wrote about extensively, when you do read it.
It answers a lot of your questions.
And there are more answers in my original post too.
Same with reading the actual DM article.
I feel as if I’m being asked to repeat everything that’s already been mentioned as some sort of punishment for not being 100% on Rosie’s side.
The article also says that she was sent to THERAPEUTIC boarding school because she had issues that the school could address.
Rosie didn’t send her other kids. Why would she send one kid, but not the rest? And when she transfers to a boarding school closer to home, it’s the same type of institution as before ie one that deals with special needs.
How do we know she has special needs? She tells us in the article. She says she has trouble forming attachments (or words to that effect) and the school helped her work on that. She still found it difficult to deal with her birth family’s attempts to bond. With her.
She complains about Rosie’s lack of cooking skills and the take out diet whilst also saying Kelly was the one who cooked – all the while failing to mention that she primarily lived with Kelly who was also a stay at home mom.
She complains about the various divorces whilst also pointing out that one of the divorces was precipitated by someone saying horrid things about the kids. Oh boo Rosie for refusing to accept someone saying horrid things about the kids.
She says that step mother always spent time in her room, a bad thing, before telling us a few paragraphs later that step mother had a cancer scare for which she was on medication….
She complains about Rosie’s weed smoking (not in the house) yet is living with a Heroin user to whom she lied about her age on tinder.
She was punished by being sent to her room without her electronics – oh the horror.
Everything this girl is saying is nothing more than self serving whiny teen angst like everybody goes through at some stage.
And whilst I sympathise with her extra emotional issues, there is nothing here that either wasn’t public knowledge and or is so bad that Rosie deserves the bad mothering award.
It seems to me as if your post mentions only half of each of her statements.
The other half would explain more about what happened.
I could reiterate everything the DM article mentions, but why do that when it’s already written up and linked to in the article above?
I’m with you. It is like talking to a wall. These people do not understand RAD or attachment disorders, which is fine. But at least they should know that they don’t know what they are talking about.
Let me back up a bit. WHY is Rosie O’Donnell famous?
Why is Roseanne Barr famous?
They are both female comics ,who have been on multiple tv shows over the last 30 years.
Once upon a time Rosie was a funny comedienne. Her talk show was also very successful. That’s why she’s famous.
She started as a VJ on MTV. I remember her well. She was different and nobody knew she way gay. Everybody just thought she was a masculine woman who was funny and snarky – snark was her thing.
She didn’t become really popular until the LGBT movement really took off. She became a spokesperson for the cause and it garnered alot of attention. It was only after that offers came in for her to have her own talk show. That show was not successful. It lasted for about six years but failed to ever gain a large enough audience to justify it’s continuation. Her public response was that she wanted to spend more time with her family so she was not going to do another season, but the truth is, the show was canceled and she had no control over it.
She was in some very good films too eg SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN.
Jenniferjustice: that ‘failed’ talkshow netted her $100M by her retirement from it. Yes there was bad blood at the end, but a talk show doesn’t stay on the air for 6 seasons if it’s not doing reasonably well. Any show on TV is cancelled if episodes don’t hold up to ratings no matter who you are.
I also remember that one of the reasons given for her taking the talk show gig was to have a more structured life so that she could have a family life, so it wasn’t too unreasonable that she once again invoked family when the talk show was cancelled.
Thank you
All this is about is a money grab. Next will be a book. I find it disgusting the media pays this girl for the big reveal on Rosie. I don’t care who the parent is any child can state negatives about them because parents aren’t perfect humans. At least Rosie adopted these children trying to give them a fair start in life. This girl will regret what she is doing one day.
too sad
RAD is a dreadful condition – my aunt and uncle adopted a RAD baby many years ago when birth records were sealed so they didn’t know his background. He was a miserable, tempermental baby who rejected all attempts at bonding, and I remember my grandmother, who was a nurse, saying “take that baby back, there’s something seriously wrong with him.” Fast forward to when he was 12 or 13, he was a screaming, sullen brat and started breaking into neighbours homes, stealing money and booze, then went on to stealing cars. My aunt and uncle had him in all kinds of therapy, spent many thousands of dollars on psychiatrists/psychologists/family therapists – nothing worked. He ended up in prison for armed robbery, stabbed a guard there and doubled his prison sentence. When he got out he completely disappeared and my aunt and uncle eventually stopped trying to track him down.
The point is, Chelsea is a damaged person with an inability to “connect”. Rosie may be difficult but she seems to have tried to “fix” Chelsea with no success. Maybe if her personality wasn’t so abrasive and she wasn’t dealing with some of her own demons, the relationship would have succeeded. Chelsea isn’t just a spoiled brat going through the teenage tunnel, and Rosie isn’t Mommy Dearest. I don’t think we can blame one or the other entirely for what happened, it was a disaster waiting to happen from the get-go.
Thanks for the clarity (and how awful for your aunt and uncle, and everyone else victimized by your cousin). How do you “talk” someone who is biologically compromised from birth out of being that impulsive, violent and self-centered?
A lot of people are lucky to have not encountered that, but it makes it harder for them to believe it could happen — and our culture is so “mom-centric,” we tend to blame the parents.
(And parents can be abusive and neglectful as well. Family life is very complicated.)
I am so sorry to hear this. I worry about my nephew every single day. I don’t know what the future will bring, but I pray we can all reach him somehow. He was not abused in foster care, but he was neglected. I swear, I cannot take any more of this comment section. I can’t stop crying. I don’t know why this story is hitting me so hard. I don’t particularly like Rosie. Maybe because I have to defend my sister like this all of the time? I don’t know.
Adoption is a selfless act and when one gets a disturbed child through that process, they should be helped and supported, not torn to shreds over nonsense claims like she smoked pot when we were not around. No good deed goes unpunished. I wish Chelsea well, but I know that she is being used by the bio mom and others for money. The bio mom keeps selling her stories and expressing private maters. She keeps defending herself as a drug user who was unable to make a decision about the life of her child, but never admits that it is precisely for that reason that she was forced to give her child away. It is all Rosey’s fault and now poor Chelsea has jumped on this bandwagon, being manipulated by these losers against a woman who took her in and tried to help her. No good deed goes unpunished.
Exactly SillySimone. Chelsea is in the unfortunate position of being the adopted child of a celebrity with her own emotional issues, but because her adoptive mother is a rich and famous person, everyone involved in Chelsea’s life is jumping on the “let’s make money!” bandwagon. You are right, no good deed goes unpunished. I hope your nephew manages to turn his life around with the love of you and his family to support him.
The saddest part of this to me, is that someone (probably her biological mom, or her boyfriend or his mom) got this girl to give this interview in exchange for money. There are no bombshells or salacious details here, just a lost teenage girl upset with the mother who raised her, as many teenagers are. Grounding your children without electronic devices and access to friends?! HOW INHUMANE?! In all seriousness, my heart really breaks for Rosie here. No parent is perfect, and I bet she’s more upset about those adults manipulating her daughter into this interview than anything.
“For punishment, we were sent to our rooms, no electronics, not being allowed to hang out with friends.”
I don’t understand. Is this supposed to be some kind of evidence as to how horrible it is being Rosie O’donnell’s child? That sounds like a perfectly normal punishment to me.
Makes me think that the stuff like ‘she locks herself away all day’ is more like ‘she spends her day working in her office instead of paying attention to me’ and this child is just entitled and ungrateful. Like every other teenager in the world.
wow! More slams on the daughter as being ungrateful and entitled. Please explain to me why you think she is spoiled. Spoiled means you get your way, you are given whatever you want whether it’s good for you or not, you are given everything without having to earn it, you are allowed to be disprectful, etc. All this girl wanted was Rosie and Rosie was not available. Tell me how that is spoiled.
Being sent to your room as a kid is perfectly normal, acceptable discipline, but Chelsea is not an average child. She had/has needs that were/are not being met. If your child is depressed and lonely, being sent away for hours by yourself is seen in a different perception and has a different affect than it would on the average kid. When she needs her most, she is shunned and put away. And if your child needs your attention and time more than the average child, how do you justify being cooped up in an adjacent house playing with your paints and crayons? Rosie comes off as a self-absorbed, self-centered, self, self, self. She didn’t want to deal with her so she sent her off to boarding school. When school was over, she still didn’t want to deal with her so she grounds her to her room or Rosie goes to her other house where she can play by herself.
Oh Christ! Do me a favor, go look up RAD and stories about RAD kids and then come back and tell me how unloving Rosie has been.
She’s not entitled and ungrateful….she has some development problems related to her birth mother’s drug addiction while pregnant. This kid has been dealt a huge issue that has nothing to do with her innate selfishness or teenage angst or being the adopted daughter of a celebrity, she was born with many strikes against her and neither mother nor daughter is directly to blame.
I read her quotes with absolute disgust. Her list of grievances (“Mom fed us takeout ” and “Mom punished us by taking away our electronics” and “Mom is a mere human who doesn’t let me do whatever I want”) sounds like your standard laundry list of complaints by any teenager. The difference here is that Rosie’s lack of perfection was seized upon by a child who knew she had a biological mother out there whom she could “choose” instead of the woman who raised her. Most of us get through these adolescent dramas and accept our mothers’ lack of perfection, whether we grow up to be close to them as adults or not, but this kid feels she can simply replace her because Rosie didn’t give birth to her. I know adoption can be a beautiful experience for many people, but the fear of this – of being a mere foster parent to an ungrateful child in whom I’ve invested everything and for whom I sacrificed tremendously only to receive in response contempt and declarations of “You’re not my real Mom!” as soon as conflict or teenage rebellion arises – is the reason my husband and I decided against adoption. Heartbreaking situation.
It sounds as if you would have been very good, insightful as parents by adoption.
By the time they’re old enough to say that stuff, usually as a little test, there’s enough connection there to see it for what it is, and you ride it out. It actually means they’re secure enough to say it, which is a good sign.
Kids by biology find other ways to be mean and hateful when they individuate. ; )
Please do a little research about babies born to drug addicted mothers and adopted out before you take such an intransigent position. Look at my earlier post and you’ll see how horrific it is dealing with adopting children with RAD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and other emotionally traumatic issues from early childhood before you voice such a misunderstood opinion.
You know, this story has had my Spidey Sense tingling for a long time. I was raised in a similar situation, just not adopted. I think Rosie is a broken mess of a human being. Her mother died when she was young and she had a distant relationship with her father after that and never developed much of a relationship with her stepmother. I think that when she was with Kelli and adopted all of these kids she meant well. But the reality of raising kids is a lot different than the fantasy.
Rosie has always struck me as someone who is fundamentally selfish. That’s not necessarily a bad thing if you don’t adopt four + children with multiple spouses. Chelsea may be one of those kids that needs a different life than the one Rosie provided. Maybe she didn’t need the money and all that comes with that. Maybe she needed a close knit family where mom is super involved with her day to day life and not the loose knit village that Rosie created.
Something else to consider. My mother treated me much differently than my siblings. She has all but admitted it but my all of my siblings don’t understand why I have such a difficult relationship with her. One sibling does since he was there when we were young but he didn’t really understand it until he had his own children and saw his wife experience the same thing I did. The others? Think I’m the worst person in the world for not worshipping our mother. Thing is, she has been a much different mother for them. Much.
I’m not going to dismiss what Chelsea says as just the rants of a spoiled teenager. I think she has more maturity than most would give her credit for. And as far as the older boyfriend and all of that? She will wise up and get her life on track. I made similar mistakes when I was searching for a “normal” family to emulate. I did the best I could with my limited options and resources. In the back of my mind I kept telling myself that this was just temporary and was just a step on the path to the life I really wanted. Chelsea doesn’t have a lot of options with no money and another year of high school to complete. Kelli may not have the money to support Chelsea either since Chelsea is 18 and probably doesn’t have any child support trailing here anymore.
It’s easy to judge Chelsea through the lense of a typical teenage/family life. She may have had a life that seemed wonderful from the outside but was actually miserable on the inside.
@ Twinkies
This is a thoughtful and introspective commentary. I don’t have anything to add; I just appreciate the perspective.
Rosie didn’t adopt four children with different mothers. Rosie adopted Parker alone and Kelli met Rosie when Parker was two and was in Rosie’s life when Chelsea was adopted, and Chelsea and Parker have always called Kelli mom. The other two children are one adopted, Blake, and one biological child, Kelli’s pregnancy. All four kids have the same parents, Kelli and Rosie, and grew up with them. After the divorce they shared custody for years. Kelli was the stay-at-home mom while Rosie was the provider. Kelli did become very involved with the cruise thing for LBGT families with kids, so did work in that regard while raising the children.
She said she lived with Kelli and her partner, and it was wonderful but decided to go back to Rosie’s house I guess sometime, She could have lived with Kelli again. There’s a reason she left Kelli’s and went back to Rosie’s house, and I imagine it’s because she got mad at Kelli’s rules. Kelli is a wonderful, wonderful human being and mother.
To say she has nowhere to go is wrong unless it’s that she wants everything her way. When she disappeared and was found, Kelli’s partner, Ann Steele, tweeted thanks to everyone and acknowledging she was found. Ann and Kelli obviously care about Chelsea a great deal.
Rosie’s fifth child is one she adopted with her second wife.
All I come away with from this is that Chelsea’s bio mother gave her up for adoption when she was two months old. Rosie adoped her when she was with Kelli and for all intense purposes, Keli was the primary care giver. They split and Chelsea lost Keli. It doesn’t matter that Keli might be available to her. For whatever reasons, Keli left the kids’ home and is no longer their mother. So, who was left for this depressed, emotionally fragile teen to turn to? Rosie, who has not been emotionally invested nor available for her.
To say she only stays where she can get her way is ridiculous. A more obvious and accurate conclusion would be that she is trying to find love, but in the wrong places with the wrong people. She is desperate for acceptance and belonging. To imagine she left Kelli’s because she didn’t want to follow her rules is cold. Who is to say Keli (now with Ann Steele) wants any of the kids living with them? Who is to say she simply missed her siblings and many kids will go back to a dysfunctional home because they need to be with their siblings and can’t stand not knowing what’s going on, which is typical of an eldest female sibling. They want to be with their family even if it’s to their own detriment. I see this in Family Court regularly.
Chelsea herself says it. The little she talks about Kelly paints her as a loving mother who took care of her even when she divorced and re-married. She mentions that she spent lots of time with Kelly who was, in her own words, more supportive than Rosie.
So what could could happened that in her moment of crisis she can’t go to the loving parent, but chooses her druggie boyfriend?
Chelsea didn’t lose Kelli. They split custody. For Kelli to agree to her being sent away to a special boarding school for that period of time Chelsea talks about tells me Chelsea did have some deep-seated emotional problems. I’ve always found Kelli to be a tremendous person who has great compassion and is beyond kind. She grounded Rosie.
She has said their breakup was a painful time because they let the children down but it really amounted to growing apart. Their interests really became different. I know that was a growing period for Kelli, who said she had a rough year navigating the breakup even though she wanted it and suffered from depression during that time. I remember Rosie saying they took a year to slowly split getting the kids used to it and that no one knew for that year. It gave the family time to adjust.
Kelli loves all of her children and has said that her kids love her wife. She married years after her breakup from Rosie. Parker and Blake walked them down the aisle. And all four kids were at the wedding. Kelli talked about how much light she brought to the family and was always cooking great meals. Chelsea didn’t just get takeout. She had another family. Chelsea had somewhere to turn.
A photo of Kelli and her wife with the four children two years ago.
http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/files/2013/06/kellianne.jpg
My take away is that there’s a whole house next door for doing arts and crafts. Sounds like Narnia! (Except for the creepy little dolls.)
Yep, she sounds like every addict who ever deflected blame. Classic addict behavior.
Chelsea isn’t an addict….she was born from a mother who was an addict. The resulting emotional/mental/physical results are horrifying and permanent.
Jaded: No one is listening to us. For them it just must be either Rosie’s fault or a bratty Chelsea. There is literally no understanding. I quit trying to explain this for my own sanity.
Chelsea’s comments in that article tell it all, and I will paraphrase:
1. My siblings came home after school and hung would hang out, I would keep to myself as I liked my own company and the company of my dogs.
2. Rosie would try to be affectionate with me and my siblings, but they liked it and I did not. It was just me.
3. Rose asked me repeatedly to talk to her about what was wrong, but I just did not want to.
4. I had attachment issues
5. I have always had attachment issues
Just some examples that clearly illustrate this child has a serious attachment disorder. DM should be run into the ground for paying this damaged and disabled child to talk about this stuff as though Rosie was to blame for something that is entirely the fault of her bio mom. That is who needs to be blamed. The bio mom who did drugs while pregnant and then gave away her child. Let’s blame her!
@SillySimone – thank for your rational and sensitive comments. People are too quick to assign blame without knowing the underlying issues. Perhaps they’ll read our comments here and adjust their unfounded opinions.
I believe having Rosie as a mom would not be an easy experience. I think Rosie adopted all those kids to replace the family she never had growing up but didn’t really know how to parent and kind of checked out. Don’t adopt if you’re going to spend a day locked up in a house painting dolls. Her multiple divorces indicate she is not an easy person to live with.
Plus the double persona is very real. I have mentioned multiple times my aunt worked for Rosie back in the day and she always said Rosie was not nice to her staff and was really difficult and nasty behind the scenes. My aunt has nothing to gain by this and she revealed this while Rosie’s talk show was still on the air when Rosie was still known as “The Queen of Nice”, before people caught on she was a rather complicated person with a lot of issues.
Exactly!
Maybe Rosie had these faults but I think this is typical teenager angst. She’s gonna regret her harsh words one day..
It’s not typical teenage angst, she was born of a mother who was a drug addict while pregnant. Read up about RAD and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and you will see what Chelsea is dealing with.
Boohoo you had time outs in your bedroom.
Totally not normal, right?
Chelsea isn’t normal. Her birth mother was a drug addict. Do you understand how that affects the unborn child?
Sounds to me like someone is angry that Mom cut her off financially.
Read some of the comments from people who have actually had to deal directly with children with RAD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, etc. and you may have a bit of understanding as to why Chelsea is the way she is.
Maybe you shouldn’t diagnose someone with a medical disease when you don’t have the qualifications to do so.
The only people who know how much of this is true are the people who actually lived in that house. I assume none of them comment on this forum.
I believe every word she said.
Having been told I was the problem child as well, and never feeling loved by my mother, her words really hit home to me.
My mother admitted just before she died that she never liked me. She always loved my sister, and my brother could do no wrong. I am the eldest child. (I found out after she died that I was just like her growing up – a tomboy who liked to drive fast cars and wear jeans. She wanted a daughter who loved to wear dresses and paint her nails, which is what she got with my sister.0
I hope that Chelsea either finds a good therapist, or does a lot of “inner child” work on her own to help heal those wounds. I found that John Bradshaw’s books, and the “Self Parenting” books by John K. Pollard III, to be most helpful.
Ugh. This thread got mad ugly. There has to be a way that one can defend Rosie without trashing her kid right? I don’t think even Rosie would appreciate the way some people here are talking about her child who struggles with mental illness.
Yes, it is called understanding that this poor girl has an attachment disorder and let it be done. No blaming anyone.
First you should never diagnose someone. You don’t know this girl. It’s really reckless to make assumption about someone.
Second Chelsea said she bonded with her nannies.
Third, she says she was tested and no drugs were in her system as an infant.
Ferrie: First – Um, she describes herself as having attachment issues = attachment disorder. There is no such thing as a school for treating depression, if there were, I would have been its mascot. There are, however, foundations and schools that are focused on attachment issues (which is what she says she was sent away to deal with). So yeah, I may not be an expert on astronomy, but I certainly know about adoption related RAD issues and children born addicted to drugs/alcohol. Yes, I can make that assessment. I am not saying she has RAD, but she does have an attachment disorder, which she herself describes.
Reckless is a publication taking advantage of a mental health crisis in order to use a young woman to attack her famous mother. Reckless is not me pointing out the obvious, which was also described by the person in question.
Second – she did not bond with them, she liked them. She did not bond with her siblings and says littler about her other mom, other than she is a good cook. She also likes her other step mom. Liking and bonding are not the same.
Third – She says this. She says she went and got the records and has no problem making this public? Fine, then why not make the records public? I find it hard to believe that a hard core opiate user who carried a child to term did not pass any of that along. Why don’t we all do drugs while pregnant? Wait, we can’t because we would pass the narcotics along to our unborn child. But even if she was clean at birth, the only source we have for Rosie telling her this is still her.
It’s called an armchair psychologist.
I hate this. My sister was adopted and she bonded with my mother at the beginning. But in her teens, she had a hard time as my parents were totally unstable. My mom started telling everyone she had attachment disorder which was so unfair. I had huge issues with my mom as a teenager too, and do to this day–but my sister, who had a much tougher time of it, got labeled with attachment disorder because she happened to be adopted.
Right on Kitten – people are so quick to apply the easiest blame; kid is just being an ugly spoiled teenager; mom is just a mean, bitchy, self-absorbed Rosie O’Donnell. No understanding of what the kid suffered as a result of a totally messed up birth mother, nor any knowledge of the lengths Rosie went through to rehabilitate her problem child.
People are projecting all over the place. There’s talk of “real mothers”, “half-sisters”, step-mothers that ruin your life, and little adopted babies who “aren’t right” and should be sent back. It’s a little horrifying.
I’m a little concerned that some of this could put off potential adopters.
I seriously, truly think there are some commenters with untreated mental health disorders right on this thread.
I think it’s sad that their relationship has come to this. I’m not a fan of Rosie, but I can’t say I know her, so I take both sides of the story with a grain of salt.
The girl was was adopted by Rosie and Kelli. They wanted her. I’m sure they had the best of intentions and cared for her to the best of their abilities. Sometimes one’s best isn’t enough, especially for a child with this kind of background.
Mothering aside, I think it’s an agreed-upon stance by now that Rosie has some serious issues. Might they not have had an effect on the children as well, in particular this one? And the child sounds rather typical to me, in terms of reaction to consequences of her actions by a parent. The difference here, is there are other circumstances not usually found within a family. So who knows what’s really going on? But the child’s feelings shouldn’t be ignored or invalidated. She has them.
I have friends who adopted a baby boy from Russia 21 years ago. He was born to a 14-year-old addict. His parents are warm and loving and he is very close to them and says he would not trade them for the world. However, he has started experiencing some serious psychological issues and anger surrounding his adoption. He even acknowledges that he cannot understand why.
It’s no about invalidating her feelings. She has a right to that. It’s the fact that she SOLD the story. Just like her birth mom sold quite a few stories, which showed no concern for her child, now Chelsea is selling a story for MONEY, bringing up take-out, sloppy Rosie, what she wears at home. No matter their issues, which I’m sure are great, I would be devastated a child sold a story just to make me look bad so she and her loser 25-year-old ex-heroin addict boyfriend, a man, could move out from his mom’s place. And it’s obvious Kelli agrees with none of her behavior since she’s not funding Chelsea either. Tough love is necessary since she chose this guy that her mothers don’t approve of, meeting him off of Tinder at 17.
I have no doubt that Kelli and Rosie are both very worried about Chelsea and have no control. She may pull through this and mature and go back and live with Kelli and go to school. I truly hope, though, she doesn’t get into drugs. Her birth parents were addicts, so it’s in her genes that she could become addicted, not just experiment. This guy she’s with is bad news. Let’s not forget he was convicted on felony heroin charges and she only just recently turned 18. I still find her birth mother suspect because she has sold a number of stories.
Well I hope the few thousand dollars she received from the Daily Mail helps her start her new life with her Tinder boyfriend.
Well, we all know what Rosie is doing right now after her bad day. She’s locked in her art studio in sweats, painting her dolls, eating take-out pizza and her kids’ cookies, smoking pot, and. . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=95Flf3Nx7sw
She wants to live where there are no rules.
She was born to a mother, who, by her own admission was a heroin addict. This child was neglected from conception until she was adopted. Is it any wonder she may have attachment issues?
She went to her birth mother for a short time and left. Probably because even birth mom had rules she had to live by.
It is odd, out of so many kids, that only one with mental health issues is speaking out.
Do I think Rosie is a nice person, probably not. But parents are not their kids friends. Should not be expected to act like it.
I have a hard time believing this girl. In my own experience, when my daughter took off to go live with her gross boyfriend, she lied to everyone and said I kicked her out of the house. That didn’t happen. I had certainly been thinking about asking her to leave and go live with her dad, but we never got to have that conversation because she took off. Also, my daughter’s horrible mood swings and constant attempts at picking fights with everyone who lived in the house made us all avoid her. I dreaded coming home from work everyday because I never know what to expect. My younger daughter just stayed in her room and my husband and I also kept to ourselves because we were so tired of the arguments and bad attitude. I’m not saying it was the right approach but we were so beaten down mentally by her behavior we were just trying to get through it.
However, this interview escalates things to a point that it will be really hard for mother and daughter to make up. These are things Chelsea can’t take back now. That’s what is sad. In five years she will probably realize she was wrong and this interview will still be out there.
I’m so sorry you went through that – I hope she changes with time. I work in mental health and have seen the scenario you described – blaming mom for everything – countless times. Just today someone was on the phone and turned to me and said “My mom blames me for getting raped”. The things people do to their mothers – it’s most commonly moms that get blamed, not dads, in my experience.
Exactly this. EXACTLY. I’m sorry your daughter was such a problem.
I can’t believe how many naive people are thinking she’s just telling a “true story” here.
My brother and sister are exactly the same. They both have diagnosed (different types of) bipolar. They are hard to live with, near impossible sometimes. I, along with my parents have had to assume a carer’s role with them basically and sometimes when they present their side of events or how they see a situation, it literally shocks you, you question if you’re going crazy, because it’s often such an outrageous view or just plain made up. But they believe it and will defend it to the death.
Maybe Rosie is annoying, maybe she smokes weed. But considering these types of individuals say outrageous stuff (like a parent may drink of weekends, but they say “they are an alcoholic and drink everyday”), I just don’t believe the depth of anything she says.
The bit about the candy really made me annoyed and reminded me of stupid stuff my siblings have said!
With regards to being hard to make up, I do wonder when Chelsea comes down mentally, if she’ll say all the right things or just whine and demand etc to come back into Rosie’s life.
I find (at least in my situation) when the mood shifts, they feel “without” or are without, they always want back in, Rosie may feel like things can change, or she may wish to abate some of her guilt and pain,trust Chelsea and try and help her. Chelsea will do it again and again, like a cycle though.
Rosie never ever should have told the world her daughter is mentally ill and even posted a photo of her on social media! No one has the right to do this!
Now people won´t believe this girl ever, even if she speaks the truth. What if someone harasses her or her bf or possible future men beat her for example? Everyone will say “oh look that´s Rosie´s insane little daughter who just makes stories up”.
I’m going to try to say this as plainly as I can so it doesn’t garner outrage.
Maybe what Rosie did wasn’t exactly right, but it appears that it is factual about Chelsea (or let’s pretend it’s completely factual anyway). She has a mental illness. We can PC it away, but it doesn’t change the fact. I think as a parent, Rosie wants people to be informed and yes, she probably was a bit angry and wrong for doing it, but sometimes even a good parent can come to the end of their tether. The reason why people (who have a functioning brain and logic and thus the only people who’s opinions count anyway) won’t/don’t believe her is because they use their own discernment and weigh up what Chelsea has said. Perhaps like me, they use previous experience to judge the situation. Truly, I think only a brain dead moron or a card carrying member of the Outrage Committee would jump in and decide without thinking. Just because people don’t give an explanation about WHY they came to a conclusion, doesn’t mean severe processing wasn’t involved.
I may be wrong, people may all be that stupid these days to just spew out opinions. But I don’t think so. I personally can look at what Chelsea said and weigh it up to similar situations I’ve experienced, because what people like Chelsea say are always so damn alike. I’m very sure Chelsea believes what Chelsea perceives, but that doesn’t make it true. I’m sure people who have a relevant opinion to be able to do something for Chelsea if something was to go wrong, would be perspicacious of the situation enough to be able to do a case by case judgement. Dealing with this situation isn’t easy for anyone involved, I’m almost certain Rosie didn’t do it out of spite, she did it to deal with the situation.
Nothing she mentioned sounds bad to me. Most people try and put on a cheerier face in public and don’t bother at home. Sure, it would be nice if she got more home cooked meals but chinese and pizza isn’t a bad thing to most teenagers. Her mother drinks occasionally and smokes pot sometimes (but never around the kids)? Oh, how terrible. Her mother takes away electronics and grounds her to discipline her? The horror! She listens to music and has hobbies? WORST MOTHER EVER.
Honestly, she sounds like such a brat. I was struggling with mental illness as a teenager like she does and I was every bit as much of an ungrateful shit. I just didn’t sell my parents out.
I was waiting for abuse. I was waiting for actual abuse. This is a working parent doing their best.
I consider marijuana use to be in the same family as alcohol use – as in, it can be used in moderation and does not make one = dirty drug addict. Note that Chelsea says, “we could never see her do it, but we could smell it.” Rosie was PROBABLY trying to hide it.
I’m no Rosie fan – I think, even as a liberal, that she goes WAAAAY too far sometimes, to the point of being a bully – but she was not, based on this, a bad mother.
Everyone seems to hate this kid so I guess I’m weird but I really empathize. I so clearly remember being that age and having a hard time and feeling trapped and just so resentful of my parents. I thought the interview was fairly respectful, actually. She just sounds like a teenager without a great deal of perspective. Maybe it’s that I taught teenagers? I dunno. I didn’t find her offensive or spoiled in the least. She sounds to me, actually, like she’s had a lot of therapy (kids who have had a lot of therapy tend to be unusually self reflective for their age)
Oh man, if getting yelled at and grounded is child abuse, put my father in prison. If asking if I have any candy stashed in my room, arrest my eldest brother who was a bodybuilder and always shooting himself in the foot for only buying “clean” foods for himself. If drinking wine while watching TV (she doesn’t watch documentaries, but do Russian soap operas count?) is bad parenting, my mother is getting the chair. Sorry mama!
I’m sorry but…ungrateful much??? If this is what this kid thinks a poor upbringing is ,reality is not going to be kind to her