ABOUT THE BOOK Roseann Teresa ODonnell was born on March 21, 1962 in Commack, New York to Roseann and Edward ODonnell. Her mother was a homemaker, while her father worked as an electrical engineer. ODonnell was the middle child of five children, and though her father did well within his profession, raising five kids was expensive. ODonnell has said that the family bought their clothes at flea markets, not Macys and she had to share one vehicle, a Plymouth Volare, with her four siblings. This made Rosie and her siblings different from the others with whom they attended school in Dix Hills, New York, most of whom received their own cars on their sixteenth birthdays. One of the greatest tragedies of ODonnells life came when she was just a little girl. Her mother died of breast cancer, leaving ODonnells father to raise the five children. Roseann ODonnell was buried on the stars eleventh birthday, though she and her siblings did not attend the funeral, at the insistence of their father. ODonnells parents had kept the illness from their children, so ODonnell and her siblings were left stunned by their mothers death. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Despite on-air professions of love for Tom Cruise throughout the run of The Rosie ODonnell Show,ODonnell said very little about her love life for many years, though she had privately acknowledged herself as a lesbian for some 20 years. She met marketing executive Kelli Carpenter in 1997, and the two began dating, though ODonnell did not come out publicly as a lesbian until 2002. The couple adopted a child together in 1999, son Blake Christopher. ODonnell came out to the public during an interview with Diane Sawyer in March of 2002. She told Sawyer that her decision to come out publicly was due to a Florida-based gay couple who were challenging a Florida law that prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children. She and Carpenter welcomed a new addition to their family in 2002 with the birth of Vivienne Rose, who was conceived through artificial insemination using an anonymous donor. ODonnell took time off from her career to be a stay-at-home mom. The star remarked that being a stay-at-home mom was a great, great, great time. She and Carpenter got married in 2004 in San Francisco, California. Carpenter took ODonnells name. ODonnell and Carpenter formed a travel business, R Family Vacations, which created cruise vacation packages for the gay and lesbian community and their families and friends. The first cruise was filmed and made into a documentary for HBO. Buy a copy to keep reading! CHAPTER OUTLINE Biography of Rosie O’Donnell + Background and Upbringing + Major Accomplishments and Awards + Personal Life + Recap of Recent News + ...and much more