Rosie O’Donnell Draws 1.87 Million for Kimmel, Beating Fallon in Summer Guest-Host Race
Updated
Updated · LateNighter · Aug 20
Rosie O’Donnell Draws 1.87 Million for Kimmel, Beating Fallon in Summer Guest-Host Race
3 articles · Updated · LateNighter · Aug 20
Summary
Rosie O’Donnell’s first night guest-hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! pulled 1.87 million viewers Monday, the biggest audience for any Kimmel substitute host this summer.
Nielsen’s preliminary Live+Same Day data also put her ahead of NBC’s Tonight Show, with 218,000 adults 18–49 versus Jimmy Fallon’s 156,000.
Online, O’Donnell’s Monday monologue reached 2.4 million YouTube views, more than double the top monologue from any other Kimmel guest host this summer.
The surge appears tied to curiosity around her return to network TV and her long-running feud with Donald Trump, whom she has mocked repeatedly during the stint without naming directly.
Her numbers still trail Kimmel’s usual benchmark—he regularly tops 2 million same-day viewers and 3 million YouTube views—and delayed viewing could lift O’Donnell’s total further.