Rosie O’Donnell is opening up about the guilt she felt going under the knife for a secret facelift.
The 64-year-old comedian explained in a poem titled “Decisions,” posted to her Substack on Monday, that she feels “shameful” over her privilege in the world.
O’Donnell admitted that the cosmetic procedure “cost more money” than she “has ever paid” for a vehicle.
“The things I have – earned some say, but it’s the gross excess that wounds me,” the actress penned.
However, O’Donnell wasn’t always on board with elective surgery.
“I used to feel very strongly about facelifts,” she wrote. “Not casually — morally. I had assigned myself as head of all women who would never — ever [get one].”
O’Donnell elaborated that while she once thought facelifts were a “betrayal” of feminism, losing 50 pounds gave her a change of heart.
When looking in the mirror and facing gravity, the mom of five tried to reassure herself that it was “natural,” but that “acceptance” started “to feel like lying.”
O’Donnell’s child Clay, 13, meanwhile, tried to talk her out of it, telling the talk show host she “earned” her wrinkles.
“Which — first of all — rude,” O’Donnell mused. “But also … correct. Then Clay said, ‘Young women look up to you.’ And finally — with strong effect — ‘I wouldn’t be able to respect you if you did it.’ And that one … landed.”
O’Donnell confessed that Clay sounded “exactly” like her younger self, which “threw” her for a loop.
“I delayed the whole thing for months, just sitting with it, thinking,” she detailed.
Ultimately, O’Donnell felt the need to teach her child that people have the power to do what they please with their own faces and bodies.
Now, the “A League of Their Own” star is pleased with her results.
“I wanted to still be me, just … less haunted,” O’Donnell expressed. “And I do look like me — A slightly more well-rested, emotionally stable version of me.”
She added that “no one has noticed” the facelift.
“I didn’t disappear, I didn’t become someone else — I just stopped arguing with the mirror,” O’Donnell reflected. “And maybe that’s enough. Or at the very least … it’s what a lower deep plane face lift looks like when it minds its own business.”
Going forward, the “Rosie Show” alum decided she will use her voice whenever she feels “called to.”
As O’Donnell put it, it’s “for the girl I was, the woman I am and all those joining my ranks as we carry on in act three, this is me.”
On Monday, “LadyGang” co-creator Keltie Knight also revealed she had gotten a secret facelift and felt guilt surrounding the surgery.
“I felt shame about actually going through with it,” she wrote in an essay for Glamour. “I know younger women are getting facelifts and proudly own their decision, but I was 41.”
“It was like couture. A couture facelift,” the 44-year-old added.
