Rosie O’Donnell revealed she frequently speaks to friend Lyle Menendez as he serves a life sentence in prison for the 1989 murders of his parents, Joe and Kitty Menendez.
“[We speak] about two or three times a week,” O’Donnell, 63, told Page Six in an interview published on Saturday, April 26.
The former talk show host added that she was “sure” that the Menendez brothers would be released from prison soon, as they seek a resentencing for their 1996 double murder conviction.
Lyle, 57, and his brother Erik Mendendez, 54, were found guilty of first degree murder for the 1989 killings of their parents and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On April 17, a judge postponed the brothers’ latest resentencing hearing in order to consider the admissibility of the California state parole board’s risk assessment review about a potential prison release, according to Variety.
O’Donnell said of the brothers’ current legal fight, “I think it’s the only way that you can love and care for someone who’s serving life without parole, is to have endless hope and believe in their ability to get out of this really inhumane sentence.”
Earlier this month, O’Donnell credited her friendship with Lyle with helping her feel “safe enough” to “love a straight man” for the first time in her life.
Rosie O’Donnell said she doesn’t have any plans on mending her and Ellen DeGeneres’ strained friendship. “I knew her for so many years. It just felt like I don’t trust this person to be in my world,” O’Donnell, 61, said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published on Thursday, June 15. The two comedians […]
“He started calling me on a regular basis from the tablet phone thing they have,” O’Donnell told The New York Times in an interview published on April 12. “He would tell me about his life, what he’s been doing in prison and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to trust and be vulnerable and love a straight man.”
O’Donnell has been a longtime supporter of the Menendez brothers, having told Larry King Live in 1996 that she believed their argument that they were abused by their parents as children and killed them in self-defense. The former View cohost acknowledged that her faith in Lyle’s defense was rooted in allegedly experiencing sexual abuse within her own family.
Lyle reached out to O’Donnell following her 1996 TV appearance and they eventually formed a bond after speaking for the first time in 2022. O’Donnell exclusively told Us Weekly that Lyle offered crucial support when her 12-year-old child, Clay, was diagnosed with autism.
“[Lyle] has helped me a lot. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have [my child’s service] dog,” O’Donnell told Us about her Hulu documentary special Unleashing Hope: The Power of Service Dogs for Children With Autism on April 22. “While I was really trying to decide whether it was morally right for me to apply [for a service dog] he would say, ‘I’ve been talking to you for two years. I hear Clay every night.’ Because we shared a bed at the time and they would talk on the phone as well. He understood how challenging it can be and said, ‘This is something that will help them and will help you too.’”
She went on: “He said, ‘If they don’t think that the dog is right for you or Clay, they won’t accept you.’ So I listened to him and I did it. If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have done it. Then all the healing that’s happened for my kid, which is really profound.”
O’Donnell also recently confirmed that she’d relocated from the U.S. to Ireland mere days before Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second presidential term earlier this year.
“There’s a great, great school [here in Dublin]. And Clay has done very well. And they were really welcoming,” the actress told Us. “And I love the little town, the little village. It’s in the heart of Dublin, but it’s still a village where you know the name of the grocer and you know the name of the cashiers. People are unbearably kind in a way that shocks me every single day.”
