Rosie O’Donnell has slammed Jay Leno over Netflix‘s docuseries Fit For TV: The Reality Of The Biggest Loser over a cruel stunt years prior.
The 63-year-old media personality – who recently showed off their weight loss from Mounjaro – pulled no punches as she went after the 75-year-old comedian decades after they were both talk show hosts during the 90s.
Rosie took to Instagram on Monday night to share two images taken from her television with the caption: ‘Jay Leno is a mean a**hole #biggestloserdocumentary.’
One of the photos was of Tracey Yukich from the docuseries who was a contestant on season 9 of The Biggest Loser.
Rosie seemed to be referring to part of Fit For TV: The Reality Of The Biggest Loser where Yukich was shown during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in 2009.
On the program Jay made the cruel move of reading death threats Yukich had received while on the show.
The 63-year-old media personality – who recently showed off their weight loss from Mounjaro – pulled no punches as she went after the 75-year-old comedian (pictured in LA back in June) decades after they were both talk show hosts during the 90s
Yukich described on the documentary: ‘After I was voted out I got a phone call from one of the casting producers.
‘They said “Tracey, listen you did a good job girl. Just be positive okay?” Like they knew what was going to happen.’
‘Tracey you are just pure evil,’ one of the emails that Jay read on the program said as another read: ‘I would not stop on the brake if I see you cross the street!!! I might even wanna accelerate.’
Tracey began tearing up as she reacted on the docuseries: ‘It was so bad. Wow my feelings were so hurt. They were. I didn’t know I was a villain until the show aired.’
Meanwhile, Rosie made multiple appearances on The Tonight Show when Jay was hosting.
She also had her own daytime chat show titled The Rosie O’Donnell Show which aired over six seasons from June 1996 to June 2002.
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno aired from May 1992 to May 2009 before he returned from March 2010 to February 2014.
Meanwhile, The Biggest Loser, which ran for 18 seasons on NBC and USA, saw obese or overweight people from across the US dropping upwards of 100 or even 200 pounds over a matter of months.
Rosie took to Instagram on Monday night to share two images taken from her television with the caption: ‘Jay Leno is a mean a**hole #biggestloserdocumentary’
One of the photos was of Tracey Yukich from the docuseries who was a contestant on season 9 of The Biggest Loser
The show ran from 2004 to 2016 airing on NBC, before it was cancelled. It was then rebooted on the USA Network in 2020, before being cancelled after just one season. In its heyday, the program went global, with versions appearing in countries around the world, earnings hundreds of millions of dollars. The branding was licensed for products including cookbooks, DVDs, and weight-loss camps.
When its NBC run was cancelled in 2016, it came after controversy, with critics arguing that it prioritized a number on the scale rather than contestants’ overall health and well-being.
Netflix’s new docuseries, titled Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser, ‘takes a look behind-the-scenes, exploring its cultural relevance and complicated legacy‘ – and as part of that, previous contestants spoke on camera about some of the dangerous habits they practiced in a bid to lose the most weight, and scoop the $250,000 prize.
Those practices included fasting for 10 days, and surviving on minimal calories while undergoing intense exercise regimes among others.
Rosie moved to Ireland earlier this year with her 12-year-old child after the star of the president’s second term after being a longtime target of Trump’s insults and jabs.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage.
O’Donnell, said in a March TikTok video that she would return to the US ‘when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America.’
Trump’s outburst followed O’Donnell’s July 7 HuffPost interview, in which she discussed her decades-long feud with him and her 2024 move to Ireland, made ahead of Trump’s reelection.
Trump’s disdain for O’Donnell dates back to 2006 when O’Donnell, a comedian and host on The View at the time, mocked Trump over his handling of a controversy concerning a winner of the Miss USA pageant, which Trump had owned.
‘I look at America, and it feels tragic,’ she said. ‘I feel sad. I feel overwhelmingly depressed. I don’t understand how we got here.’
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly brought up O’Donnell, including during the first Republican primary debate in August 2015.
When moderator Megyn Kelly questioned his use of terms like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ and ‘slobs’ to describe women, he replied, ‘Only Rosie O’Donnell.’
Her name eventually resurfaced during a debate with Hillary Clinton, when Trump said, ‘Rosie O’Donnell has been very vicious to me. I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree she deserves it.’
O’Donnell responded in a now-deleted post on X, calling him an ‘orange anus.’
After Trump’s first election, O’Donnell told W Magazine in October 2017 that she struggled to cope with his presidency, saying it took her a year to regain emotional balance.
Rosie moved to Ireland earlier this year with her 12-year-old child after the star of the president’s second term after being a longtime target of Trump’s insults and jabs
O’Donnell recently insisted she has ‘no regrets’ after fleeing the United States for Ireland to escape Donald Trump ‘s second term in the White House, and blamed ‘Project 2025’ for motivating her to move across the Atlantic
Trump tells Ireland leader he’s better off not knowing who Rosie O’Donnell is
‘I seriously worry whether I personally will be able to live through [his presidency] and whether the nation will be able to survive,’ she said. ‘It’s a terrifying concept, on the brink of nuclear war with a madman in charge.’
Trump’s latest jab at O’Donnell seemed to be in response to a TikTok video she posted this month mourning the 119 deaths in the July 4 floods in Texas and blaming Trump’s widespread cuts to environmental and science agencies involved in forecasting major natural disasters.
‘What a horror story in Texas,’ O’Donnell said in the video. ‘And you know, when the president guts all the early warning systems and the weathering forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re gonna start to see on a daily basis.’
The Trump administration, as well as local and state officials, have faced mounting questions over whether more could have been done to protect and warn residents ahead of the Texas flooding, which struck with astonishing speed in the pre-dawn hours of July 4 and killed at least 137, according to Reuters.