Bill Cosby And Leif Garrett Were On A “Do Not Ask Back” List for “The Rosie O’Donnell Show”

Rosie O’Donnell recently appeared on Watch What Happens Live and told Andy Cohen that Leif Garrett was one of about 5 people who earned themselves a spot on the Rosie O’Donnell Show’s “Do Not Ask Back” list. Which is crazy because he’s on my “Wait, He’s Not Dead?!” list (not only is he alive, he’s only 58!).

If you remember who Leif Garrett is, your reading glasses are probably right on your head silly. That’s where I usually find mine. Leif was a 70s teen heartthrob and the mold from which Charlie Sheen was formed. Another name on Rosie’s list was Bill Cosby. And if you can guess why Leif was on the list, you can probably also guess why Bill was on there. Leif was banned for smoking crack in the green room, and Bill was banned for (eye-roll allegedly) terrorizing a woman.

According to TooFab, Rosie’s show ran from 1996-2002, and even though it was the late 90s, nobody ended up on Rosie’s DNAB list for committing crimes against fashion. What can I say, it was a different time. And drugs were presumably OK in moderation, but guests had to keep it classy.

As for why they were banned from the show, Rosie explained, “Sometimes it was just excessive drug use that was evident. Like cocaine on the side [of the nose] and they weren’t able to focus.”

“One guy, Leif Garrett, came with a fresh wound from a pipe that he used for crack,” she then claimed. “He sort of gnawed it out. So when I met him in the green room, he had a normal face and he came out a few minutes later and he had a huge red welt of burn from being in the green room those 20 minutes I didn’t see him. People who are that messed up shouldn’t be on TV.”

That’s rich coming from a former host of The View. Speaking of which, Rosie says that when she was on The View, she would occasionally bring up the subject of Bill Cosby for discussion, and “Every time I tried to bring it up, it became a little fight.” Rosie said she “was one of those people who was not surprised by the charges against him,” partly because of what he did to get himself banned from the Rosie show. 

“I’m gonna tell you this story about what happened to a staff member on our show,” began Rosie. “Very tall, like 6 foot tall, larger woman, very great producer. She was assigned to do his Mystery Guest, he was our mystery guest. Newsflash, I knew who the mystery guest was every time. I just was acting along with it. I am not good at surprises and I felt like I could act it better than do it for real. So I knew who it was.”

She claimed the producer went in and told him Rosie wouldn’t know he was the guest. Rosie said he then told the producer, “All [O’Donnell] has to do is put her hand right here’ and he put his hand near his penis and she’ll know it’s me.'”

“She started to cry and got up and left,” Rosie continued, saying a male producer then had to come in and talk to Cosby about what was and wasn’t “appropriate” behavior.

After all we’ve learned about Bill’s MO, this sounds so fucking typical. Also so fucking typical, is the response to this story TooFab got from Bill’s “representative” who is apparently so good at his job, he and his client have become one (petty, pathetic prisoner with a God complex).

In a statement to TooFab, Cosby’s rep says, “Here’s the multi-million dollar question: Why Now? The Rosie O’Donnell Show first episode aired in 1996 and the show ended in 2002 but now she waits (24) years later to accuse Mr. Cosby of making lewd comments to a female producer. This is just another attempt for a well-known celebrity like Rosie O’Donnell and many others to create false allegations about Mr. Cosby, in-order to gain attention for themselves and their new projects that are not doing well.”

“Remember, on March 23, 2020 Ms. O’Donnell tried reviving The Rosie O’Donnell Show for one night only and her efforts were catastrophic,” the statement continued. “Perhaps, if the media did a thorough investigation of Mr. Cosby’s accusers as they have done of Tara Reade (VP Joe Biden’s accuser) — Mr. Cosby would not be in prison today.”

Is Andy Cohen “the media” in this scenario? Because if that’s the case, Joe Biden better hope he has never crossed paths with Patti LuPone because Andy will certainly get to the bottom of it if he did.

Pic: YouTube