Yahoo Movies Rosie O'Donnell Says Daughter Told Her Growing Up with 'Lesbian Icon' Mom Wasn't Exactly 'Normal'
Rosie O'Donnell is sharing more of the back story about the moment when daughter Vivienne called her out for not exactly having a "normal" upbringing.
Last month, the comedian, 60, shared a video on TikTok in response to her daughter Vivienne, 19, who told her TikTok followers that while the teenager is "incredibly thankful" for O'Donnell, "one thing she's not done is normal."
In her response, O'Donnell teased that she would spill her daughter's "secrets," though the TV personality later clarified in a follow-up video that she was just joking and it was all meant in a "funny manner."
Speaking to PEOPLE in this week's issue, O'Donnell expanded on the back-and-forth with her daughter, clarifying "there was never a thing" between the mother-daughter pair.
Vivienne first began to discuss her upbringing on TikTok after users replied to her previous "Story Time" videos claiming her "parents did an amazing job keeping [her] out of the craziness of Hollywood" and that O'Donnell "kept things relatively norm" for her kids. In one of the videos, Vivienne recalled when she was younger that a woman named "Mo" would "always come" to her home and she "never had any idea" who she was — until Vivienne later found out it was Madonna.
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Walter McBride/Getty; Rose/TikTok
"So [Vivienne] told the story and people wrote in and said, 'That's nice that your mother kept your life normal.' A lot of people wrote in and said how great I was at keeping it normal. And [Vivienne] was like, 'Normal?' " recalled O'Donnell.
"She called me first and said, 'Normal, Mom. Most people, it's not normal to have a lesbian icon as a mother who fights with the president, while you are in high school. That's not normal.' So she was kind of ribbing me and teasing in the way that we do," the comedian continued.
"And then I went, what do you mean? You're not calling me normal. I'm going to tell all your secrets, kid. It was just comedy," said O'Donnell. "But then Page Six printed something and people got down on Vivi for what she was saying. And it went into a crazy little thing."
O'Donnell, who is also mom to Parker, 27, Chelsea, 25, Blake, 22, and Dakota, 9, went on to note that Vivienne is "great" and is "doing the best she can" while at college.
"She was on the Dean's List," O'Donnell shared. "I was very proud of her. She's a great student and she's loving college and she got her own apartment and she's good."
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