Rosie O’Donnell has shared another glimpse of a family role she has been particularly happy to watch develop this year, her son Blake becoming a father.
On September 16th, O’Donnell posted a new photo of Blake, 26, with his 5-month-old son, Anthony. Blake sat with the baby on his lap while both wore Green Bay Packers gear, according to People.
O’Donnell kept her caption brief, calling them “my boy Blake – his boy Anthony” and adding hashtags about family, peace and a higher love. Anthony Joel O’Donnell, Blake’s first child with his wife, Teresa, arrived in March and is O’Donnell’s fifth grandchild.
She explained this summer that watching her son care for a child of his own had unexpectedly helped heal wounds she carried from losing her mother when she was young.
Rosie Says Watching Blake Become a Dad Helped Heal Her
View this post on Instagram
In a July interview with People, O’Donnell reflected on becoming a mother without having her own mother there to guide her. Roseann O’Donnell died of breast cancer when Rosie was 10, an experience she has described as the defining loss of her life.
Seeing the next generation of her family take shape has affected her differently. O’Donnell said watching her 26-year-old son hold his own baby had helped heal “many of my maternal wounds.” Speaking about Anthony and Blake’s new role as a parent, she described the experience elsewhere that summer as an “indescribable joy.”
Blake has also made clear that he wants his mother involved in his son’s life. O’Donnell recalled him telling her, “Mommy, I want you to move back to be around my baby,” while discussing how much it means to her that her adult children still want and need her in their lives.
For O’Donnell, who has spent much of her time living in Ireland, the request added another consideration to the question of where she wants to spend her time. She said being around Blake and Anthony had brought her a kind of fulfillment she had not anticipated before becoming a grandmother.
Anthony Has Become a Familiar Face on Rosie’s Instagram
View this post on Instagram
By July, Anthony was already becoming a regular presence on O’Donnell’s social media. HOLA! USA reported at the time that O’Donnell had been frequently sharing photos of Anthony while talking about the emotions of watching Blake adjust to fatherhood.
O’Donnell had been celebrating Blake’s new role from the beginning. For his first Father’s Day as a dad in June, she posted another image of him holding Anthony and praised her son as “confident caring and kind.” She told Blake she was proud of the father he had become and said she loved both father and son “to the moon and back.”
Blake and Teresa Welcomed Anthony in March
O’Donnell announced Anthony’s arrival on March 28th with a black-and-white photograph of the newborn’s foot in the hospital. She revealed his full name, Anthony Joel O’Donnell, and wrote that her “heart burst open” before congratulating Blake and Teresa on becoming parents.
O’Donnell later shared photos from meeting him in person in April, calling the visit the “best day ever” as other members of the family also spent time with the newborn.
Blake and Teresa had announced the pregnancy on September 22nd, 2025, approximately a year after their wedding. Their announcement showed a sonogram beside a baby onesie hanging in a sunflower field with “Baby O’Donnell March 2026” written across it.
The couple captioned the announcement, “Our lives are about to get a whole lot sunnier,” while O’Donnell responded in the comments that she was “over the moon.”