Rosie O’Donnell Marks First Aussie Trip With Rainbow Opera House Tattoo

Rosie O’Donnell has commemorated her time in Sydney with a tattoo of the Opera House in the colours of the Progress Pride flag.

The actress and comedian got her tattoo done at Little Frankie’s Tattoo Co in the CBD, by senior tattoo artist Hailey, placed on her right thigh near her hip.

“Rosie is such an incredible advocate for queer rights, something we are so passionate about, and we are pinching ourselves that she visited for her new tattoo!” read a post on Little Frankie’s Instagram.

The Opera House sails were lit up in the colours of the Progress Pride flag to mark the start of World Pride in 2023, with O’Donnell’s tattoo seemingly based on that image.

O’Donnell has been Down Under this past fortnight for three exclusive performances of her one-woman show Common Knowledge across Sydney and Melbourne, where she received standing ovations for each performance. It’s the 65-year-old’s first time in Australia, telling the Star Observer that it was a “bucket list kind of adventure.”

The show was developed for Edinburgh Fringe, it started out as a comedy set, but it wasn’t until a friend suggested she try it more in the style of a play that the show started to come together.

“It’s just a different form of storytelling, I suppose,” she said in our interview last month. “At the beginning, when I tell the story of my mother’s death, people are surprised. You hear gasps sometimes, about just how sad it was — five small children losing their mum.

“We definitely walk the line, but I think that audiences have responded really well.”

“I’m a big fan of women in sports”, says O’Donnell

Getting a fresh tattoo isn’t the only thing O’Donnell got up to during her visit. In Melbourne, she helped launch the second week of the AFLW’s Pride Rounds, with a game between Greater Western Sydney and Fremantle.

 

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“I played baseball, and really the reason I have a film career is because of the movie A League of Their Own, where I was the only actress in LA who could throw from third to first, and so that’s how I got cast in that film, and that was the beginning of my entire career,” she said.

“So I’m a big fan of women in sports, especially for youngsters, and keeping them in is so important so that they don’t drop out as they get older … I’m indebted to all these amazing athletes and to this League for being so supportive of diversity.”