Back in her early stand-up days in the mid-1980s, O'Donnell "was always trying to do nice things for people," says longtime friend and comedy-club manager Louis Faranda. "If there was a comic that wasn't getting stage time, she'd tell somebody to put this comic on." On her TV show, though, O'Donnell was notoriously tough to work with. She went through a string of different producers during her six-year tenure on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, where "she was known to be very, very difficult," says a source. "But she did things like fight to give her staff incredibly long vacations each summer, which is not the norm in television. So they were very loyal." (Upon announcing her withdrawal from the magazine, O'Donnell dispersed $10,000 checks to more than 30 loyal Rosie staffers.) "Look, Rosie is no shrinking violet," says Jim Paratore, president of Telepictures Productions (part of AOL Time Warner, the parent company of PEOPLE), which produced the Rosie show. "She's very demanding of herself and everyone around her. But at the same time she was never anything but a pro. Did we agree on everything? Absolutely not. But was it always a conversation? Did you get to have your voice heard? Absolutely."

O'Donnell knows she's hard work. "What I said to my (TV staff) when we left is, 'I pushed you really hard. But I hope you've raised the level for yourself and that you will jump higher.' " She also knows that fame has allowed her certain privileges. "If you accept being sanctified," she says, "you have to accept being vilified." For the record, O'Donnell says she is happy to walk away from her initial $6 million investment in Rosie magazine if it means reclaiming her brand name. "And if a judge decides I owe (G + J) every cent I ever made?" asks O'Donnell. "I'll give it to them. Because I know I am telling the truth."

Has Rosie changed? Not a bit, say her friends. She of the new short haircut -- and perhaps even shorter temper -- is the same Rosie who shops at Target, rides her Harley-Davidson Sportster to Miami's 11th Street Diner for pita pockets and Diet Coke and leaves the waiters oversize tips; the same angry and articulate political activist who berates politicians in a quest to legalize gay adoption; the same money-spinning icon whose Barbie Doll replica has raked in millions for Mattel but who has given $7.6 million of her own estimated $100 million-plus fortune to charity -- including more than $2 million donated to 9/11 causes. "Ro is who she always has been," says her lifelong friend Jackie Ellard. "The TV show was the least of her. Not that she's not funny and generous and always for the underdog. But interviewing celebrities -- that's so not her."

So what now? With the magazine behind her, O'Donnell plans to spend more time at her family's five-bedroom home in Nyack, N.Y. She is selling her Manhattan townhouse and is even considering selling her $6.75 million retreat in Miami Beach, to simplify. "One home," she says, "where the kids each have one bike, where they ride Big Wheels and go to block parties." There's the birth of the next baby (conceived by artificial insemination with sperm from an anonymous donor) to look forward to. And to keep busy, there's always her obsession with Broadway: O'Donnell has already seen the hit revival of Hairspray four times, and she's looking for theaters to stage Boy George's show. Despite the bad press, and although it is likely that G +J will pursue a lawsuit against her for financial losses, O'Donnell says she is at peace with herself, her decisions and her behavior. The day she announced her withdrawal from the magazine, "I put on the Hairspray CD," she recalls, "and I waited backstage with it blasting. Then I read my statement and went home. That afternoon, when I picked up my kids and we stopped for ice cream, was the happiest I felt in four years."

-- MICHELLE TAUBER
-- CYNTHIA WANG in Los Angeles, MARK DAGOSTINO, LYNDA WRIGHT and LIZA HAMM in New York City, LINDA TRISCHITTA in Miami and TOM DUFFY in Boston