Fired 'View' producer sues 'bully' Rosie O'Donnell, says she feared for her safety

The Wrap
October 16, 2015 at 2:22PM
Rosie O'Donnell appeared as a regular on "The View."
Rosie O'Donnell appeared as a regular on "The View." (Randy Salas/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Former "The View" senior producer Jennifer Shepard-Bookman sued Rosie O'Donnell on Thursday, calling the former co-host a "bully" that created a threatening environment that made the producer fear for her safety.

"My client started crying," Shepard-Bookman's attorney Brian Kennedy said in court documents about a September 2014 incident where O'Donnell went off on his client for shifting coverage of beheaded journalist James Foley over to co-host Whoopi Goldberg.

Shepard-Bookman was "scared of Rosie and thought she was going to be assaulted," Kennedy wrote in court documents, adding that O'Donnell got right into Shepard-Bookman's face, causing her to fear she'd be assaulted.

As TheWrap reported, O'Donnell's daughter Chelsea claimed the reason her mom split from the ABC talk show for a second time was due to her feud with Goldberg.

Shepard-Bookman claimed O'Donnell got her fired out of spite. O'Donnell's attorney Nicolle Jacoby called the allegations "baseless."

The lawsuit comes at an already rocky time for O'Donnell, who's reportedly reeling after her daughter Chelsea fired off scathing comments about O'Donnell in an interview with DailyMail. In that interview, Chelsea claimed her mother's public persona was a facade.

"She has this public persona; she will put this big smile on her face and try to be funny . . . whereas when we were home . . . she would either just be in her room, not engaging with us, or watching documentaries."

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