On Thursday night, Rosie O’Donnell ended her week of guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!with one of the smartest and most powerful sign-offs of the summer.She performed a full musical parody of the song “Danny Boy,” turning it into an open letter to Donald Trump.
O’Donnell started by thanking everyone who watched during the week, especially the “hungry, hungry hypocrite” in the White House.
She delivered one of her sharpest lines yet, saying, “It’s kind of weird to think he spent more nights with me this week than Melania.”
She also joked that her real reason for guest-hosting wasn’t about getting her own show, but about auditioning for “the next Golden Bachelorette: Gay Edition” — because, as she put it, “don’t you all want to see who gets the final Rosie?
God knows I do.”
But the real highlight was the finale: a full rewrite of the classic Irish song “Danny Boy,” written as a tribute to a “very special boy.” In just a few lines, she hit almost every big Trump scandal of the year in one sweeping ballad:
“Poor Donny boy, your polls, your polls are falling.
Your reflecting pool is green as Mountain Dew.Your wig’s a mess, your ballroom is appalling, and with Iran you’ve bit off more than you can chew.Measles are back, inflation is a-swelling; you post all night, you’re sleeping while you work.And what’s with all this useless crap you’re selling?Hey, sweetie pie, you’re driving us all berserk.But there’s a way to end this drama.It’s time to use that stable-genius brain.Since we all know you’ll never be Obama, why not resign and make this country great again?”
In just four lines, O’Donnell covered a week’s worth of real news: the botched algae-green Reflecting Pool renovation, the blocked White House ballroom project, the return of measles under RFK Jr.’s watch, and the ongoing Iran war that stretched far beyond its promised “few weeks.”
O’Donnell also thanked Kimmel directly for “reminding everyone that we have the right to free speech in this country, whether Orange Voldemort likes it or not” — a clear reference to ABC’s earlier decision to ban her from performing an unrelated Trump parody during her guest-hosting run.
It turns out, you don’t need permission to roast a president.
You just need a good melody and better material — and during the week Rosie O’Donnell subbed for Jimmy Kimmel, Trump gave her plenty of both, as he always does.
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