Rosie O’Donnell claims that the late director Penny Marshall told her to lose 20 pounds on the set of A League of Their Own.
The former talk show host recently made the revelation while discussing how losing 60 pounds changed her life.
“It’s so weird to buy jeans that fit so well. When I was working late at night, my biggest concern was not about my body shape, but whether I looked fat,” she told People.
“When I did ‘A League of Their Own,’ Penny Marshall didn’t help me by saying, ‘Rosie, I want you to lose 20 pounds.’ “Penny, you think I carry it around for fun?” O’Donnell, 64, recalled.
“When I look back, I think, “Oh, I wish I could have enjoyed myself just the way I was.”
The former “View” host, who started taking Munjaro to treat type 2 diabetes in 2023, said she feels “much healthier and more powerful in my body” despite being “the same weight” as she was in the movie.
In January, O’Donnell spoke about his experience filming the cult classic under Marshall. Marshall called Marshall a “female sports fanatic” and a “feminist.”
“I think she didn’t want people to think of her as a feminist,” O’Donnell said on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. “She was older than me and I don’t know that she wasn’t as passionate a feminist as I was.”
“She was kind of a closet feminist in a way. She didn’t necessarily want to carry a banner, but she really supported women and women’s sports and women athletes in a way that no one else I’ve ever met,” she said.
The “Rosie Show” alum said Marshall “had a huge impact on women’s sports in American history because of that movie.”
“I mean, I see little kids come to my door[on Halloween]dressed up as me, and they don’t know[that I’m Doris Murphy],” she added, referring to her character on “A League of Their Own.”
Marshall died in December 2018 at the age of 75 from heart disease and diabetes.
