Comedian Rosie O’Donnell reveals she’s engaged to policewoman Elizabeth Rooney

AMERICAN comedian and actor Rosie O’Donnell has announced that she’s engaged to girlfriend Elizabeth Rooney after a year together.

Speaking to People magazine, O’Donnell confirmed the couple’s engagement but said they hadn’t set a date.

“This is a long time in the future. We both decided that that would be best,” O’Donnell told the magazine at an event in New York.

O’Donnell described her policewoman fiance as a “wonderful woman”, and revealed they have been living in separate cities since they went public with their romance a year ago.

“She lives in Boston now and I live here in New York. It’s been a long-distance thing. It’s been great. I think she’s a wonderful woman,” O’Donnell said.

“She’s very much an equal, she’s very much her own person and loves what she does. She’s a pretty unbelievable young woman,” she added.

O’Donnell joked to People about the pair’s 23-year age gap, saying: “I keep telling her I’m too old for her. But she doesn’t seem to care.

“She’s like, ‘I was in the Army! I put my life on the line every day you think I don’t know who I want to date?’

“I’m like, ‘All right I guess that’s true.’ She has a lot of good points.”

Rooney also shared the news on her Instagram account with a picture showing off her engagement ring alongside the caption “YES” and an engagement ring emoji.

O’Donnell also said that people have confused Rooney with her daughter Chelsea, 20.

“A lot of people say, ‘Oh my god, Chelsea looks so great,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘That’s not Chelsea. That’s my soon-to-be spouse.’

“It’s a little tricky … she doesn’t seem to think it’s an issue at all. Nobody ever does, but I do sometimes.”
This will be O’Donnell’s third marriage.

The star was previously married to businesswoman Michelle Rounds, who died of an apparent suicide in September 2017, with whom she shared daughter Dakota, 5.

She was also previously married to Kelli Carpenter-O’Donnell from 2004-2007, and they share four children; son, Parker, 23, son Blake, 18, daughter Vivienne, 15 and daughter Chelsea, 21, with whom the comedian has had a rocky relationship.

O’Donnell has also been linked to actress Tatum O’Neal, who was once married to tennis icon John McEnroe.