“Thank you mom I got my music back today. How are you?” Chelsea O’Donnell wrote to her mother. She had something else she was trying to sort out.
“I’m trying to get ahold of the social worker to let her know the plans for when i get out, Hannah texted her for me,” Chelsea wrote.
Rosie O’Donnell’s answer was considerably less complicated. “Ok great – got my nails done – no more gel for me my nails are ruined,” she replied. “Are u reading a good book ?”
Chelsea was reading. “I am reading the legacy series,” she wrote. “Its really good she has a bunch of other books too.” Then she returned to the nails. “And yeah I havnt painted my nails in years but I remember that stuff breaking my nails.”
Rosie posted screenshots of the conversation on Instagram Aug. 27 with a photograph of the two of them hugging and smiling.
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Their June Prison Visit Lasted About Four Hours
The picture was taken in June at Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Wisconsin, where Chelsea is serving an 18-month sentence after her probation was revoked last year. Chelsea had asked Rosie to visit her.
Rosie later said that what followed was “the first conversation I’ve had with her in 10 years that lasted more than 25 minutes.”
“The first time that I saw her in a consistent way was the four hours in the prison,” she told Page Six.
Rosie had written about that day before talking about it with Page Six. “The guard explained the rules,” she wrote in a poem about the visit. “A hug hello and goodbye only / No money exchanged / Hands above the table / No loud voices.”
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Chelsea came into the visitation room in a green prison uniform. Rosie wrote that she looked healthy and calm. They hugged.
The visit was supposed to last four hours, but a tornado warning ended it early. Chelsea cried when it was time to separate.
“And that’s the first time I’ve seen, kind of, an empathetic emotion from her,” Rosie later said.
Rosie Says Sobriety ‘Changed Everything’
By July, Rosie was hearing from Chelsea much more often. “She’s sober, and that’s changed everything,” she told PEOPLE. “I saw the kid that I used to know.”
Rosie said Chelsea had been sober for almost two years. She had once believed something different about what that would take.
“When I was adopting, I thought, ‘Well, love can cure everything,’ but I don’t know that that’s true,” Rosie told Page Six.
Chelsea was adopted by Rosie and then-partner Kelli Carpenter as a baby in 1997. She left home at 17 and later moved to Wisconsin to live with her birth mother. Rosie and Chelsea reconnected in 2018 while Chelsea was pregnant with her first child. Chelsea is now a mother of four.
Chelsea Is Planning for Life After Prison
Three arrests in Wisconsin followed in 2024. Chelsea later pleaded guilty to charges including possession of methamphetamine, felony bail jumping and resisting or obstructing an officer. She received six years of probation in 2025.
The prison terms were stayed while she remained on probation. Her probation was revoked in October.
After the June visit, Rosie wrote that Chelsea was “planning her post prison journey.” In the Aug. 27 texts, Chelsea said she was trying to reach a social worker “to let her know the plans for when i get out.”
Chelsea has also seen some of what Rosie has written about their relationship. “I’ve asked for Chelsea’s input,” Rosie told Page Six.
By July, Rosie had another update. “She calls every day, and we talk,” she said.