Warning: Rosie O’Donnell is Back, Blaming Bush for Her Bad Marriage and...Wearing a Bra

Rosie O’Donnell has admitted that her pique toward President George Bush led her to marry Kelli Carpenter, with whom she’s now broken up. And in the “Too Much Information” department, she related how her staff has convinced her to wear a bra. To channel Scott Brown, “Thank God.”

In “Rosie’s back in the talk game,” a Monday USA Today look at her new The Rosie Show debuting tonight (October 10) at 7 and 11 PM EDT on the Oprah Winfrey Network, she told the paper’s Ann Oldenburg: “Kelli and I got married (in San Francisco in 2004) in some ways as an act of civil disobedience as much as anything....George Bush held a press conference in the middle of the war and says, ‘You know what the problem in this country is — those gay people in San Francisco.’ And I was so furious. I said, ‘Let's go.’”

She credits Winfrey’s staff for helping her launch the new program, including getting her to wear underwear. Oldenburg relayed:

In fact, she says, “I now have bras and matching panties,” thanks to the staff, 90% of which are former Oprah show employees. O’Donnell says that after she came in on the second day not wearing a bra, staffers started taping bras on her door.

An excerpt from the article on the front page of the “Life” section in the Monday, October 10 USA Today:

....O’Donnell says launching a show in Chicago is a big step. “I was a little worried about how it would feel. It's been a long time. A new city. I felt like a kid going to college. It's like a rebirth. Here I was married for a decade (to Kelli Carpenter) and in a relationship that I didn't think would end.”...

She's in love?

“I am,” O’Donnell says. And it’s serious.

Her girlfriend, Michelle Rounds, a corporate headhunter for an IT company in New York, is moving to Chicago to join O'Donnell in her newly purchased $2.5 million home. “She’s 40, I'm 49,” O’Donnell says. “What she has always wanted in her life is a relationship and children, family.”

So they'll have kids? “I think so.”

And get married? “I totally could imagine that.”

“There’s something about marrying someone in a commitment with all your friends and family around you. … Kelli and I got married (in San Francisco in 2004) in some ways as an act of civil disobedience as much as anything. We didn’t have our family there, we didn’t have our children there. George Bush held a press conference in the middle of the war and says, ‘You know what the problem in this country is — those gay people in San Francisco.’ And I was so furious. I said, ‘Let's go.’”...

“Michelle is quite interested in me having a long life. And she’s tiny. … I told her, ‘If I roll over in the bed, I could kill you.’ Smother you.”

O’Donnell credits some of her happiness to bioidentical estrogen, which Suzanne Somers recommended. “I was really, really in a bad place. My skin was dry. I had no sex drive. It was like I was dying in a way. Now I have vitality again. My hair is shiny. My eyes are bright. I feel like a different person.”

On top of all that, Rounds is giving her a makeover. “She said to me: ‘Why don’t you treat yourself? Why don't you have any skin care products? Where's your nice clothes?’”

O'Donnell's other partner is Winfrey.

“She said to me: ‘I’m not your boss. We’re partners. We’re in business together,’” O’Donnell says. “You don’t find that too often. I told her how she has changed my life.”

In fact, she says, “I now have bras and matching panties,” thanks to the staff, 90% of which are former Oprah show employees. O’Donnell says that after she came in on the second day not wearing a bra, staffers started taping bras on her door. And then they took her to Oprah’s favorite store, Intimacy, and got her fitted.

“I’ve been wearing a 38 C for years and I’m a 38 E! I didn't even know they went to E. … I’m a new woman!”