Rosie O'Donnell is still reeling from a "trauma"...well, a "trauma" for her: Wearing a dress on TV.
The 52-year-old comedienne, actress and co-host of The View is rarely seen in one. On a Jan. 6 episode of the panel talk show, O'Donnell stepped out on stage, shimmying in an indigo-colored, body-hugging, cleavage-baring, V-neck, knee-length dress, which appeared to be from Italian designer Chiara Boni's La Petite Robe 2014-15 Fall-Winter collection. The outfit contained a tulip-style wrap skirt. She paired the look with black leggings and stiletto heels.
O'Donnell has spoken publicly about that fateful day since, saying she felt self-conscious wearing the dress. In an episode that aired the next day, Destiny's Child singer Michelle Williams called her look "Bootylicious."
"It was very weird for me," the co-host said on Friday's show, joking, "I still have trauma, remembering it."
The co-host and actress, who has battled weight problems for years, added that she sometimes feels "vulnerable" about how she looks and that after she appeared on The View in her dress, she "had therapy and the whole two hours was about the dress."
"She said, 'Did you feel sexy in that dress?' And I said, 'No, but I felt everyone else thought that I looked sexy and that made me uncomfortable.'"
"Well, when I first put it on, I was so impressed that it fit...It looked tiny in the closet. I'm like, 'This has gotta be for [co-host] Rosie Perez, they put it in the wrong room,'" she said.
A photo of O'Donnell in the dress was posted on her website.
Her YouTube page also featured a video showing guest co-host Mario Cantone hugging and complimenting her backstage, saying, "I never thought I'd see the day. I'm so proud of my little girl."
On the Jan. 6 episode, she earned applause as she stood up and posed in her outfit, during a discussion about body image. The co-host suffered a heart attack in 2012. Less than a year later, underwent vertical gastric sleeve surgery to lose weight.
"Since my heart attack, I've lost about, over 50 pounds, maybe almost 60 pounds, maybe," she said, drawing applause. "But, you know, I had the surgery to do it."
"For me, I started to get heavy right when my show came on, in 1996," she said, referring to her former daytime talk series, The Rosie O'Donnell Show. "I became sort of instantly famous, even though I had been in movies and standup...I made some armor."
O'Donnell has in the past appeared in a dress in movies and at public events.
Here she is dressed as Betty Rubble in the 1994 movie The Flintstones...
...sporting a women's baseball uniform in A League of Our Own...
...and wearing a sparkling blue dress at the 1991 Cable ACE Awards.
And trauma or not, O'Donnell is facing her fear again. Get ready to see her wear more dresses on The View.
"On Valentine's Day, I'm wearing a red one," she said on Friday's show, doing a "raise the roof" gesture. "And then, my birthday, in March, I'm 53, I'm gonna wear something green!"