Rosie O’Donnell Officially Stateless After Ireland Rejects Citizenship Over 130-Year-Old Family Lie
DUBLIN – In a twist no one saw coming, Rosie O’Donnell has become the world’s most famous person without a country.
The 62-year-old comedian and former talk-show host formally renounced her U.S. citizenship last month, banking on ancestral ties to secure Irish citizenship through descent. She tearfully announced on social media that she was “going home” to the Emerald Isle, citing political disillusionment with America.
Ireland just slammed the door in her face, and it’s brutal.
“Ireland has no choice but to deny Ms. O’Donnell’s application,” stated Alexander Joseph McBarron, Ireland’s Minister for Justice and Immigration, in a terse press release this morning. “Genealogical records conclusively show that the O’Donnell lineage she claimed is, regrettably, fictitious. Her ancestors were not Irish. They were Welsh, and they were using an assumed name.”
Yes, Welsh.

According to newly uncovered records from the Welsh Office in Cardiff, Rosie’s great-great-grandparents were actually members of the notorious Flanagan crime family, a clan of sheep rustlers, smugglers, and counterfeiters who terrorized the Welsh borders in the late 19th century. In 1892, facing multiple arrest warrants, the Flanagans fled to America and simply rebranded themselves as “O’Donnells,” a common Irish surname that helped them blend in among New York’s Irish immigrant communities.
The lie held for 132 years, until Irish immigration officials did what U.S. late-night hosts never managed to do: they fact-checked Rosie.
With her U.S. citizenship already surrendered and Ireland officially rejecting her, Rosie O’Donnell is now stateless. She has no legal nationality anywhere on Earth.
Irish authorities have given her 30 days to leave the country. Sources close to the situation say she has been advised that her only remaining option is to apply for asylum as a political refugee, ironically, back in the United States she so publicly abandoned.
As of press time, O’Donnell has gone silent on social media. Her last post, from three weeks ago, read simply: “Éire, I’m coming home 🥹☘️.”
Wales has not commented on whether they want her.