Rosie O’Donnell to Replace Kimmel on Late-Night Show

Jimmy Kimmel is taking a break from late night — and he’s handing the mic to one of President Donald Trump’s most famous celebrity enemies.

Kimmel announced on Thursday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he will be stepping away from the show for two months. But the host made it clear the break is his choice this time.

“I will be taking the next two months off, this time voluntarily,” Kimmel joked, appearing to reference the short period his show was previously pulled by ABC following his controversial comments about Charlie Kirk’s death in September.

While Kimmel heads off on sabbatical, the show will continue with a rotating lineup of celebrity guest hosts.

The list includes Tiffany Haddish, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson and country-rock star Jelly Roll.

But one name got the biggest reaction from the audience.

“And… I asked one of our commander-in-chief’s all-time favorites, Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming,” Kimmel said, as the crowd burst into applause.

The move immediately raised eyebrows because O’Donnell and Trump have been locked in one of Hollywood’s longest-running political feuds.

O’Donnell, a former co-host of The View, left the United States after Trump won a second term and moved to Ireland with her youngest child, Clay, 13.

Her feud with Trump exploded again in July 2025 when the president publicly threatened to consider taking away her U.S. citizenship.

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.

He continued, “She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA.”

O’Donnell fired back in a blistering Instagram post, accusing Trump of hating her because she has always spoken out against him.

“The president of the usa has always hated the fact that i see him for who he is,” she wrote, before calling him “a criminal con man” and saying his presidency was the reason she moved to Ireland.

Despite the fiery back-and-forth, O’Donnell’s citizenship appears to remain unchanged — and now she is preparing to return to American television in a very public way.

It will not be her first trip back to the U.S. since relocating overseas.

In February, O’Donnell revealed that she quietly returned home for two weeks to see her family.

“I recently went home for two weeks and I did not really tell anyone. I just went to see my family,” she told Chris Cuomo during an appearance on SiriusXM’s Cuomo Mornings.

She said the visit was partly emotional and partly practical.

“I wanted to see how hard it would be for me to get in and out of the country,” she said. “I wanted to feel what it felt like. I wanted to hold my children again. And I hadn’t been home in over a year.”

O’Donnell also appeared earlier this week on Watch What Happens Live, which films in New York City.

Now, with Kimmel stepping away for the summer, she is set to take over his late-night desk — and the timing could not be more loaded.

For Kimmel, it is a summer vacation.

For O’Donnell, it is a return to the spotlight.

And for Trump watchers, it may be another chapter in one of the messiest celebrity feuds in modern politics.