Following Anne Heche's recent car crash, Rosie O'Donnell is sharing her remorse about past remarks she made about her.
On Aug. 5, while driving her Mini Cooper in Los Angeles, the Six Days Seven Nights star struck a house. Her vehicle burst into flames, setting the building on fire and causing structural damage. One person inside the home, a woman, was unharmed. Heche suffered severe injuries and remains hospitalized.
"So I can't stop thinking about this Anne Heche accident and how horrifying the whole thing is," O'Donnell, 60, said in a TikTok video posted on Aug. 7, "and feeling bad that I made fun of her when she was talking to Barbara Walters about having a relationship with space aliens."
Heche made no such comment. But in an ABC 20/20 interview with Walters—creator of The View, which would star O'Donnell as a co-host in later years—the actress told Walters she spent the first 31 years of her life suffering from mental illness, and said she had memories of being sexually abused by her father, who died in 1983. The actress recalled escaping into a "fantasy world."
She told Walters, "I had another personality. I called my other personality Celestia. I called the other world that I created for myself the 'fourth dimension.' I believed I was from that world. I believed I was from another planet. I think I was insane."
Heche, who wrote about her experience in her 2001 memoir Call Me Crazy, "is in extreme critical condition" and "has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention," her rep said on Aug. 8, three days after the crash. The rep added, "She is in a coma and has not regained consciousness since shortly after the accident."
In her TikTok video, O'Donnell said, "I wonder if she's okay. I think it's a miracle that she didn't kill anyone, and thank God, or goddess or whoever for that. And I hope she survives. But wow, what a tragic tale."
On the day of the crash, which remains under investigation, Los Angeles police obtained a warrant to draw Heche's blood. If it is determined that she was intoxicated at the time of the collision, she could face misdemeanor DUI and hit-and-run charges, which would be presented to the city attorney's office, an LAPD spokesperson told E! News.
O'Donnell encouraged viewers struggling with alcohol addiction to seek help. "Listen, Alcoholics Anonymous works. It does," she said. "I've seen miracles happen. So if you're out there and you're struggling and you're thinking, 'I don't know if I can do this,' try it before it's too late. Try it when you're already at your lowest."