Rosie O’Donnell explains why she decided to reveal secret facelift

Rosie O’Donnell recently decided to reveal that she got a secret facelift, and further explained her reasoning at the 2026 Tony Awards when asked about it on the red carpet.

The comedian, 64, revealed on her Substack last month that she got a facelift, admitting she felt “shameful” about it and that it cost more money than she’s ever paid for a vehicle.

O’Donnell made an appearance at the Tony Awards in New York City Sunday, and explained more about why she thought it was important to go public about her plastic surgery procedure.

“Authenticity is the goal in these days and times, and people are lying about everything all day to the American public,” she told E! News on the red carpet. “It’s very depressing to me and unsettling, and I think all that matters is truth and love, and so I wanted to be truthful and say all the complicated emotions I had about it.”

But she reiterated that not everyone in her life was a fan of her decision to go under the knife for cosmetic reasons.

“My little autistic 13-year-old said to me, ‘If you do it, I would not be able to respect you ever again,’” she recalled. “And that put me off it for a few months, but then when I went and did it in January, I came home 10 days later, and they never noticed.”

The “Harriet the Spy” star shared that she felt it was better to be truthful about it and to get ahead of a tabloid revealing it before she herself did.

“I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I did, and here’s the doctor, and if you want to,’” she shared. “But it’s very expensive — it’s more expensive than any car I ever bought, but I can’t drive around in my face.”

O’Donnell isn’t planning to get any more plastic surgery, as she said she fixed the issues she wanted to — loose skin and two lines in her face.

“I’m on Mounjaro over the last three years, I have diabetes too, and I lost over 50 pounds, and that was responsible for a lot of the extra skin that I had around my face,” she told the outlet.

In her Substack post, O’Donnell said she was pleased with the results of her pricey plastic surgery. She also shared unfiltered before-and-after pics on Instagram of her facelift.

“I wanted to still be me, just … less haunted,” she wrote. “And I do look like me — A slightly more well-rested, emotionally stable version of me.”

“I didn’t disappear, I didn’t become someone else — I just stopped arguing with the mirror,” she added. “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.”