Flasher Opens Up to Rosie O'Donnell

By Stephen M. Silverman

Tuesday February 26, 2002 11:00 AM EST

On Monday's "Rosie O'Donnell Show," the host told her TV audience that she accidentally found the unidentified woman who lifted her top and exposed her breasts during a camera sweep of the studio crowd last week. (The woman apparently beat a hasty retreat afterwards, though Rosie said at the time that whoever it was had been detained by show security pending the flasher's next appearance -- "on the 'Montel' show.") O'Donnell, 39, said on the air Monday that the woman -- whose name still remains a mystery -- happened to bump into Rosie in an online chat room devoted to fans of the show. She was "hysterical," said a sympathetic O'Donnell, who explained the woman's side of the story. "She had one of those long T-shirt sports bras you can get in Target so you don't have to wear a bra if you're lazy. Then over it she had a beaded T-shirt with hearts on it. And she wanted her daughter and her 2-year-old granddaughter to see she was wearing the shirt they made together." The woman inadvertently flashed the audience while trying to arrange her tops -- and she didn't realize it, Rosie said, so she didn't know why security had escorted her away. "She didn't know her shirt went up . . . She was in her car on the way back home to Massachusetts before she figured it out." Meeting online, said Rosie, "We started cracking up, and I said to her, 'Can you believe you showed your boobs on my show?' She was adorable." The New York Post reports that O'Donnell's invitation to the woman to come appear on the show again, presumably fully clothed, was refused.