O'Donnell was underdressed and overly loud on Sept. 9 when she sat with her pregnant girlfriend, Kelly, in the front row at her pal Christine Ebersole's debut cabaret performance. O'Donnell repeatedly yelled out between songs, "She's great! Christine is wonderful! Christine deserves an Emmy!" It prompted one audience member to shout back: "She's already got one - shut up!"
Rosie said she didn't mean to annoy anyone, explaining she was just being Ebersole's cheerleader. And she denied being drunk, as some eyewitnesses claimed she was. "I love Christine Ebersole," O'Donnell told PAGE SIX. "I had four glasses of wine, no dinner, and weigh 200 pounds."
If members of the audience were annoyed at O'Donnell's exuberance, Ebersole certainly wasn't. "Christine wishes me the best and she called me the Sunday after and was quite happy I was having a good time," O'Donnell said. As for her boisterous cheering, O'Donnell noted: "Every time Christine sings, I cry. She is my best friend in show business. She helped me adopt my son, and is the godmother to my children. When her husband was in the hospital, I was there and was the first person he saw when he woke up." [That must have done wonders for his recovery]
Ebersole enjoyed her pal's enthusiasm so much that she introduced O'Donnell to the crowd with, "Ladies and gentlemen, Rosie O'Donnell!" - drawing applause around the room. .... O'Donnell has been under scrutiny ever since she came out of the closet, quit her TV chat show, and cut her hair. Her untimely exit from her Rosie magazine this week prompted one editor to tell the new York Times that she'd "snapped."
But the chubby chatterbox sounded positively cheerful yesterday when we asked what she plans to be up to next. "I am going to produce Boy George's new musical, 'Taboo,' on Broadway. In London it had the best musical debut since Andrew Lloyd Webber."