Rosie O’Donnell has struck up an unlikely friendship—with convicted killer Lyle Menendez.
Lyle and his brother Erik are both serving life without parole in a San Diego prison for the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Mary “Kitty” Menendez. They were convicted in 1996, but decades later, O’Donnell is forging a connection that’s raising eyebrows.
In a new New York Times interview, O’Donnell opened up about her growing bond with Lyle and their regular conversations from behind bars.
“He started calling me on a regular basis from the tablet phone thing they have,” she said. “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.”
Their connection actually goes back to the ’90s. O’Donnell was following the brothers’ trial and publicly supported their defense—that they acted in self-defense after years of alleged abuse by their parents.
She appeared on Larry King Live in 1996 and voiced her belief in their story. Shortly after, Lyle reached out.
In a letter, he “thanked her for her support and stated his belief that she ‘knew’ from a personal place that what he was saying was true.”
O’Donnell didn’t respond at the time.
“At that point, I had not ventured anywhere near this in my family or in my therapy,” she told the NYT.
Her personal history, she said, made her sympathetic. She revealed that she “alleged she and her siblings had been molested by their father.”
Fast forward to 2022—after watching a documentary featuring new evidence about the Menendez case, O’Donnell spoke out again, this time on TikTok. That video prompted Lyle’s wife, Rebecca Sneed, to reach out and see if Rosie would talk to him.
Their first call? It lasted “two or three hours,” and they’ve kept up the conversation ever since.
Naturally, some friends have questioned her judgment.
She told the NYT that she “shrugged” when they said, “‘Ro, he’s a murderer,’” and decided to visit Lyle in prison instead.
During that visit, he told her about a unique prison program—where inmates train service dogs for blind and disabled veterans and children with autism.
O’Donnell was intrigued. At Lyle’s suggestion, she adopted one of the dogs for her 12-year-old autistic son, Clay. For two weeks, she commuted daily to the prison before bringing home Kuma, a Labrador mix trained by an inmate doing time for armed robbery.
“I noticed the difference in Clay immediately,” she said. “I was shocked to find out that all the stories I heard from other mothers of autistic children were true.”
That experience sparked something big. O’Donnell decided to make a documentary about the program. Unleashing Hope: The Power of Service Dogs for Autism premieres on Hulu on April 22.
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