Rosie O’Donnell’s unexpected friendship with convicted murderer Lyle Menendez is still going strong.
“The View” alum exclusively tells Page Six they still chat “about two or three times a week” as he and his brother, Erik Menendez, continue to serve out their life sentences for murdering their parents in 1989.
O’Donnell first began speaking to Menendez in 2022 after watching a documentary about the siblings.
Their case has come under renewed scrutiny following a Netflix documentary alleging that the brothers had been sexually abused by their father for years.
O’Donnell, 63, is hopeful that they will be released soon.
“I’m sure of it in my mind,” she tells us. “I have to be.”
She adds, “I think it’s the only way that you can love and care for someone who’s serving life without parole, is to have endless hope and believe in their ability to get out of this really inhumane sentence.”
During one of O’Donnell’s visits with Lyle, she noticed many prisoners sitting with golden retriever dogs.
Lyle explained that the dogs were being trained by incarcerated men to help children with autism and suggested that O’Donnell get a dog for her youngest child, Clay, who has autism.
A year later, Clay, 12, who uses they/them pronouns, was matched with a black Labrador mix named Kuma.
The “Harriet the Spy” star says that the changes in Clay have been nothing short of extraordinary.
“The drawings of people with bloody hands and knives have all stopped,” she shares. “The laughter has come back, the brightness in their eyes, the ability to go out to restaurants, the ability to stay present and not disappear into themselves, usually because Kuma is coming over and nudging them.”
O’Donnell was so impressed by the program, she decided to film a short documentary about it.
O’Donnell, like many in the autism community, is furious with Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent speech where he alleged that children diagnosed with autism, “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date.”
“I hope I never have to see him in person because I don’t feel I would be able to contain my disgust,” she says.
“Unleashing Hope: The Power of Service Dogs for Children with Autism” is streaming on Hulu.
The post Rosie O’Donnell reveals the surprising frequency in which she speaks to Lyle Menendez appeared first on Page Six.
