Rosie O'Donnell, a longtime supporter of sexual-abuse victims, says in a new book that she was molested by her father when she was a child _ and that she's very unhappy that the detail is being featured to promote that tell-all.
"[S]eems @RaminSetoodeh wants to sell his book about the view _ using this fact about me _ i am disappointed he would take this non view related aspect of my life and use it in this way," O'Donnell said Thursday on Twitter, where she also noted that she spoke to the author for only 30 minutes.
"It started very young," she told Variety bureau chief Setoodeh, who included the information in his "Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of 'The View.'" When she was 10 and lost her mother to breast cancer, the TV host says in the book, "it sort of ended in a weird way, because then he was with these five children to take care of."
O'Donnell, whose father died in 2015, added that it's not something she likes to talk about.
"Any child who is put in that position, especially by someone in the family, you feel completely powerless and stuck, because the person you would tell is the person doing it," she says in the book.
"Ladies Who Punch," which according to Variety includes a chapter about "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" in addition to coverage of the comedian's two short tours of duty on "The View," comes out April 2.
