VIDEO: Rosie O'Donnell's Run-In with Bill O'Reilly's Camera

By Tim Nudd

10/30/2007 at 02:35 PM EDT

Video courtesy Rosie.com


Rosie O'Donnell, who left The View in May, made a splashy return to TV on Monday night – unexpectedly – in a videotaped confrontation with one of Bill O'Reilly's producers from FOX News.

In the video, filmed this weekend at a book signing in Huntington, N.Y., producer Jesse Watters asks O'Donnell why she won't return phone calls from The O'Reilly Factor, which is trying to secure her as a guest on the program.

"We've called you 100 times," Watters says on the tape. O'Donnell's reply: "If Bill wants me, he should tell me himself. He is a big boy. He is a grown-up."

O'Reilly, 58, has loudly criticized O'Donnell, 45, for what he considers her reprehensible views about the 9/11 attacks on America. In the video, Watters tells O'Donnell: "Rosie, he wants to know if you regret saying that 9/11 was an inside job?"

O'Donnell shoots back: "I did not say that. He is quoting the wrong people."

She then repeatedly asks a colleague of Watters' to put down his camera, and the pair are eventually moved away from her.

"Sir, you're done," she calls after Watters. "Get out of the store. You made your point, you have your tape, go home. Skip home happily."

O'Reilly played the tape on Monday night. (The FOX News clip is on YouTube.) After saying he "regrets any imposition on Ms. O'Donnell's time," he reiterated his invitation for her to come on the show, then called her "bitterly anti-American and grossly irresponsible."