Rosie O’Donnell’s daughter Chelsea, whom she adopted as an infant in 1997, has left home to live with her birth mother, Deanna Micoley.
Chelsea O’Donnell was the 17-year-old who ran away from Rosie’s New York home Aug. 11 and — after the comic reported her daughter missing and posted a plea for help on her website — was found by police a week later in New Jersey with a 25-year-old man she’d met on Tinder.
However, as of Monday, Chelsea became an 18-year-old who could do as she wanted. Apparently, she wanted her bio mom.
Deanna, who gave up her child for adoption at 2 months old, drove from Wisconsin to New York on Monday to pick up Chelsea, TMZ reported. The website’s sources said Rosie didn’t want Chelsea to go, had cut her off financially and wasn’t handing over her Social Security card or birth certificate.
“Chelsea made a decision when she turned 18 that she wanted to go to her birth mother,” Rosie’s rep told CNN. “This was her choice.”
There’s a backstory: Deanna told the National Enquirer in March that she had learned Rosie had adopted Chelsea — whom she said was born Kayla — when the girl contacted Deanna’s father in November. In an interview with the supermarket tabloid, she alleged that her then husband had her drugged up on heroin and forced her to surrender Kayla and said she believed Rosie knew that at the time.
Rosie’s camp has strongly denied Deanna’s accusations and produced documents showing a legal adoption. Her publicist issued a statement at the time saying Rosie had “encouraged and supported Chelsea’s desire to communicate with her birth mother,” adding, “How disappointing that Chelsea’s birth mother would go public with this personal story without ever having met Rosie.”
When Chelsea was missing, her adoptive mom said the girl struggled with mental illness and needed her medication. A source told People on Wednesday that at high school, Chelsea “was always pretty quiet, but she hated if anyone brought up her mom,” the source says, referring to Rosie.
Rosie, who has two sons and two daughters in addition to Chelsea, has had a rough year: She filed for divorce from second wife Michelle Rounds in February, then left “The View” in July. Last weekend, her father died of cancer.
On Monday on her website, she posted lyrics to Pink’s song “The Great Escape.” A sample: “I won’t let you make the great escape / I’m never gonna watch you checking out of this place / I’m not gonna lose you / ‘Cause the passion and pain / Are gonna keep you alive someday.”
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