Rosie O’Donnell is reflecting on difficult moments from her friendship with Ellen DeGeneres.
The A League of Their Own actress recalled a heartbreaking moment from the early aughts when she said the Finding Dory star denied knowing her during a TV interview, despite having what Rosie described as a decades-long friendship.
“That was one of the most painful things that ever happened to me, in show business and my life,” Rosie said on the Sept. 8 episode of the No Filter podcast. “I couldn’t believe it. I have photos of her holding my newborn babies. I knew her for 30 years.”
The 63-year-old remembered the friendship denial “so well” that she “had T-shirts printed and I gave them to my staff that said ‘I don’t know Rosie. We’re not friends.'”
Rosie-who came out as a lesbian in 2002, nearly five years after Ellen-felt the sleight more deeply given that she had shared a memorable moment with Ellen on her eponymous Rosie O’Donnell Showin the ’90s, where the pair joked about the Ellen star coming out as “Lebanese.”
“She was all of a sudden in the position I was in where she was starting a show and wanted it to be successful and get the money and the accolades that came with it,” Rosie explained of the Ellen Degeneres Show host. “Instead of deciding to stand next to me and hold my hand, which is what I did to her, she did the opposite. And I couldn’t believe it.”
Since then, Rosie said that she and Ellen have “never gotten over it” and she has not received an apology.
“I would have said, ‘I’m really sorry I hurt you that much and I don’t know why I did that. It was a mistake and I hope you can forgive me,'” Rosie shared. “That’s what I would have done. I think in her mind, she thinks I keep rehashing it for pleasure.”
However, she sees herself and the comedian as fundamentally different people. “My desire to create family is the biggest force in my life,” Rosie continued. “I do it everywhere I go and I don’t think that she’s similar to me in that way.”
While Ellen has not publicly spoken out on her friendship with Rosie, earlier this year she defended the Harriet the Spy actress-who relocated to Ireland in January for political reasons-after President Donald Trump threatened to revoke her citizenship, writing to Rosie on Instagram, “Good for you.”
And amid their alleged feud, Rosie has found her community in other ways, building a family with ex-wife Kelli Carpenter, with whom she shares kids Parker, 30, Chelsea, 27, Blake, 25, and Vivienne, 22, as well as late ex-wife Michelle Rounds, with whom she shared child Clay, 12. Meanwhile, Ellen married Portia de Rossi in 2008. E! News has reached out to a rep for Ellen for comment and has not yet heard back.