O'Donnell's Memoir Won't Be "Vindictive" or "Mean Spirited"

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/3/07 at 10:40pm

NEW YORK -- Rosie O'Donnell has had "an interesting year," she confided Sunday, and a lot of it will be in her new book, "Celebrity Detox," coming this fall.

Speaking at a breakfast gathering at BookExpo America, the publishing industry's annual national convention, O'Donnell said her long-delayed memoir on fame will not be "vindictive" or "mean-spirited," but will offer a candid look at her very public life, including her brief, battling stint on "The View."

"It is, in fact, a drug," she said of fame, and spoke of seeing peers so radically, and scarily, transformed by celebrity that they looked like victims of "crystal meth."

O'Donnell, looking healthy but tired on a Sunday morning, noted that her book was supposed to come out a few years ago, but she decided it wasn't ready, not quite "cooked." Her time on "The View" convinced her she was ready to start baking again. She called the book "half blog," half "straight" writing.

Last month, O'Donnell ended an eight-month tenure on "The View" that lifted the show's ratings and, perhaps, the blood pressure of show creator Barbara Walters. O'Donnell feuded with Donald Trump and frequently had snippy exchanges with the more conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

"We've had to change the epilogue," she said of "Celebrity Detox," then joked that her next career move would be "auditioning for `The Apprentice.'"

Updated On: 6/4/07 at 10:40 PM

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 7:11am

bump

[madbrian]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 8:35am

If it's not going to be mean or vindictive, who is going to write it for her? More importantly, why then would anyone read it?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 9:33am

I remain a fan, but it seems the wrong time. We know how she feels about just about everything right now, her father, her childhood, Star Jones weight loss, Tom Cruise, and even the lovely Elizabeth.

To be a celebrity is to celebrate narcissism in its purest, highest-stakes form. There's something very elitist about writing about celebrity from inside the bubble. She should take a year off, reflect, and find a new spin on her life and shifting career. Her current overexposure as a woman with opinions on everything might better be tempered by an acting gig.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 9:38am

I agree with Auggie. Not that I care, but wouldn't a book scheduled to be released in the fall be pretty much done? I mean this new chapter just happened last week. It has the scent of a tabloid pulp edition, if you ask me. Rather like the books such as "Anna Nichole:What Went Wrong" that came out the week after she died. She should wait until she is 70 to write this book.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 10:04am

The book is specifically intended to keep her in the spotlight. You notice she will lay low during the summer, and the book will come out in the fall, just when everyone has forgotten her. There will be a huge PR push and she'll have lots of book signings and all the talk shows will interview her. The book is pure PR.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 10:07am

Just like Ann Coulter's books.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 11:22am

Im so buying it. "Find Me" was excellent, so Im hoping to enjoy "Celebrity Detox" as much.

[RobbO]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 11:23am

bump

[Magdalene]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 11:30am

I might find the time to read it if the library gets it, but I won't spend the money on it---I'm so over Miss Everything-Revolves-Around-Me!

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 11:36am

Has she ever written about Taboo? I'd be interested in reading about why she made the decisions she made for that show. It seems like she made a lot of really poor decisions on that show.

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 3:11pm

To say "I'm so over Miss Everything-Revolves-Around-Me!" is somehow hypocrite, because if you are one person, everything revolves around you, you basically care for YOUR family, YOUR grades, YOUR money, YOUR sexlife, job, friends, feelings, house, and the list goes on and on, so you actually picked on the wrong person. Few people have donates so much of their time and money to charity, etc.

[misschung]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 3:33pm

goth - I was thinking the same thing. I will be reading this regardless, but I'd love if she went into detail about that

[Tag]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 3:39pm

She has been talking about this book for a really long time. It seems like most of it WAS written before this year. Reflecting on the 4 years she had off after her own show ended. Hence the title 'Detox'.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 3:57pm

'She called the book "half blog," half "straight" writing.'

Her blog is terrifying and a squirming mass of bad grammar and unfinished thoughts. Maybe she should stick more to the "straight" stuff, so to speak.

[Magdalene]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 5:00pm

"To say "I'm so over Miss Everything-Revolves-Around-Me!" is somehow hypocrite, because if you are one person, everything revolves around you, you basically care for YOUR family, YOUR grades, YOUR money, YOUR sexlife, job, friends, feelings, house, and the list goes on and on, so you actually picked on the wrong person. Few people have donates so much of their time and money to charity, etc."

I will be fair and say she does donate a lot of time and energy (and money)to charity. And I probably could have worded it better---but her war of words with her co-host for not defending what she (Rosie) said was a bit over the top---Rosie is an adult, and can defend her own words. And the thing that disappointed me the most was how she involved herself in the Clay Aiken/Kelly Ripa brouhaha.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 5:11pm

I've been a fan of hers since her days on Star Search in the 80s. Today not so much.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 5:13pm

I used to kind of like her, but I don't get people who have opinions on everything. It'd be like someone coming on this board and posting in every single thread, even if that person didn't have anything to say that would further the discussion. I'm not saying she's a bad person because I don't believe she is. I just weary of her.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 5:24pm

Have you read her website?

She is very high-profile, so

y duz she rite like this
itz so annying
tk time 2 rite crctly
espcly snce ur blog is quoted
lotss of times

[blueroses]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 5:24pm

"but her war of words with her co-host for not defending what she (Rosie) said was a bit over the top---Rosie is an adult, and can defend her own words."

Mag, I didn't see that as the issue at all. Rosie never asked Elisabeth to defend her position. She asked her, point blank, what she thought about FOX News' interpretation. She was asking her as a friend. You could see Elisabeth squirm...she will never speak against that channel (I think she is SO angling for a job there), I think that if Elisabeth said something like, "of course you didn't mean our troops were terrorists. It was wrong for them to imply that" it would have been fine. I thought she WAS a coward in that regard. She wouldn;t give a direct answer as to what she thought about what FOX said about her friend, which was what the question was. Rosie was right to call her on her doublespeak, which she does ALL of the time. Sure, Rosie can be a bully and some of it could have been handled differently. But that, to me, was what the real issue was.

[RobbO]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 5:48pm

bump

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 6/4/07 at 9:42pm

"It'd be like someone coming on this board and posting in every single thread, even if that person didn't have anything to say that would further the discussion."

Yeah, and that person's name is Rathnait.

(And you know it.)

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 6/5/07 at 7:33am

LOL, Where is she? She's been absent for a few days?

[RobbO]

Posted: 6/5/07 at 8:27am

bump.

[Magdalene]

Posted: 6/5/07 at 1:26pm

I see what you mean blueroses.

Eliazabeth is probably angling for a job at Fox, but Rosie does have a tendency to put her mouth in gear before her brain.

As do we all at times.