“I Wish I Could Have Enjoyed the Size I Was”: Rosie O’Donnell Opens Up About Penny Marshall’s ‘Lose 20 Pounds’ Comment That Haunted Her for Years

Rosie O’Donnell is sharing a hard memory from one of her most loved movie roles, and she’s naming names.

In a new interview with People, the 64-year-old comedian and former ‘The View‘ host talked about years of struggling with body image. She revealed that the late director Penny Marshall once told her to lose weight while they were filming the 1992 classic ‘A League of Their Own‘.

Rosie O’Donnell Reflects on Penny Marshall’s Weight-Loss Remark

O’Donnell played third baseman Doris Murphy in the film, acting alongside Geena Davis, Madonna, and Tom Hanks. She said Marshall’s comment stuck with her and shaped how she felt about her body during that whole period of her career. “Penny Marshall didn’t help by saying, ‘Rosie, I want you to lose 20 lbs,‘” O’Donnell told People.

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That comment just piled onto the anxiety she already had about her body during her time in the spotlight. “Did I look fat?” she remembers asking herself, even during her late-night hosting years when the show itself wasn’t what kept her up at night.

Looking back, O’Donnell said she pushed back on Marshall at the time, basically asking her if she thought anyone actually wants to carry extra weight. Now, looking back, she says, “I wish I could have enjoyed the size I was” back then.

Rosie O’Donnell’s Weight Loss Journey and Type 2 Diabetes Diagnosis

These comments come as O’Donnell has been very open lately about her weight loss. She says she’s dropped almost 60 pounds over the last three years after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

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She credits the drug Mounjaro, which she started taking in 2023 to manage her blood sugar, and the weight loss came along with it since that’s a common side effect.

Rosie O’Donnell’s Move After Donald Trump’s Return to the White House

O’Donnell has shared a lot of this journey publicly since she moved to Ireland with her 13-year-old, Clay, after Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025. She’s posted about shopping for smaller clothes and losing weight “since Christmas,” and she’s talked openly about the emotional side of it all, tied to years of yo-yo dieting, a gastric sleeve surgery back in 2013, and now the GLP-1 treatment.

In the People interview, O’Donnell said that even though she’s back at the same weight Marshall once asked her to lose, she feels like a completely different person in her own body. “I feel much healthier, more powerful in my own physicality,” she said.

Penny Marshall’s Hollywood Legacy

Marshall directed ‘A League of Their Own‘ and went on to become one of the most successful female directors in Hollywood, known for films like ‘Big‘ and ‘Awakenings‘. She died in 2018 at age 75. She was widely respected in the industry, which makes O’Donnell’s story stand out even more, since it shows the pressure women in film faced even from directors known for telling women’s stories.

O’Donnell’s comments have already gotten people talking online about how Hollywood has treated women’s bodies over the years, with fans and former co-stars showing support for her speaking up. She’s continued to use her platform to talk about body image, weight stigma, and how much that industry pressure affected her mental health over the years.

For O’Donnell, this all seems less about blaming the past and more about taking back a story she couldn’t fully tell on her own terms the first time around.

You might also want to read: The Real Reason Why Jennifer Lawrence Refused To Lose Weight For ‘The Hunger Games’ Despite Hollywood Pressure