Rosie O’Donnell says a remark from director Penny Marshall about her weight during A League of Their Own stayed with her for years, and she recently revisited it while opening up about her health.
Speaking to People in July 2026 about losing about 60 pounds, the comedian and former daytime host said she still remembers Marshall urging her to slim down while they were making the 1992 sports comedy.
“On ‘League of Their Own,’ Penny Marshall didn’t help by saying, ‘Rosie, I want you to lose 20 pounds,'” O’Donnell recalled. “I’m like, ‘You think I carry it around for fun, Penny?'”
O’Donnell, 64, said she started using Mounjaro in 2023 as part of treatment for Type 2 diabetes. Since then, she explained, she has dropped a significant amount of weight and is now back to roughly the same size she was when the movie was filmed.
Her comments come amid renewed attention around GLP-1 drugs such as tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro. The medication is approved in the United States to help improve blood sugar in adults with Type 2 diabetes, while a separate tirzepatide product, Zepbound, is approved for chronic weight management in adults with obesity or overweight plus at least one weight-related condition.
She said the change has altered more than just her appearance, describing how much mental energy she once spent worrying about how she looked in public.
“It’s very strange to just buy a pair of jeans that fit,” she said. “When I would do late-night, my biggest concern wasn’t my set, it was, did I look fat?”
Although she has returned to a similar weight, O’Donnell said her perspective now is very different from what it was in the early 1990s.
“When I look back, I go, ‘God, I wish I could have enjoyed the size I was,'” she said, adding that she now feels “much healthier, more powerful in my own physicality.”
Even with that painful memory, O’Donnell has also spoken positively about Marshall’s influence. During a January appearance on the podcast We Can Do Hard Things, she credited the late filmmaker with helping elevate women’s sports in a meaningful way.
“She was kind of a closeted feminist in some ways,” O’Donnell said. “She didn’t necessarily want to have the banner, but she really supported women and women’s sports and women athletes in a way like no one else that I had met.”
She said the director’s work on A League of Their Own left a lasting mark on American culture and helped shape the conversation around female athletes for generations.
O’Donnell also noted that her role as Doris Murphy continues to resonate, saying the character remains recognizable even to younger fans who were born long after the film’s release.
“I mean, I see little kids coming to my door dressed as me, and they don’t know,” she said.
Marshall died in December 2018 at 75 due to complications from heart disease and diabetes.