According to comedian, talk show host, andhighly-ratedJimmy Kimmel Live!stand-in Rosie O’Donnell, she was told in no uncertain terms that she could not interview Jeffrey Epstein child sex abuse survivors during her stint on the show. O’Donnell took over for the vacationing Kimmel for a full week of shows last month, and took ample opportunity to tauntold nemesis Donald Trump, as well as other powerful men alleged to have visited the late, infamous Epstein’s island retreat to sexually abuse young girls.
ViaHuffPost, O’Donnell made the censorship claim onThe Jann Arden Podcast,where she told hosts that she had planned to interview several Epstein survivors during her last night on the show. But, according to O’Donnell, her segment was halted—by the same networkthat suspended Kimmel, allegedly after pressure by the Trump administration.
“My idea for the last night was to do the Epstein reveal,” O’Donell explained of her plan to have a group of the infamous sex trafficker’s victims appear on the show. “And they said that they were certain that that could not happen,” O’Donnell says she was told. In the end, O’Donnell, who told the network she would “do it herself,” recorded anInstagram videoin which she and the women, all dressed in white, sang a rousing version of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.”
In the text accompanying the video, O’Donnell, long an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, called former Trump personal lawyer turned attorney general Tood Blanche “corrupt,” echoing a group of survivors’July statementcalling out Blanche for ignoring their claims and for publishing personal information (including nude photos) of several survivors while continuing to shield the identities of the men accused of abusing them.
HuffPostsays neither ABC norJimmy Kimmel Live!have yet responded to O’Donnell’s claim.
