The actress opened up to Seth Meyers about the 'really beautiful' experience of becoming a first-time grandmother.
For Rosie O'Donnell, every timeworn adage about the joys of being a grandmother have been proven true.
The SMILF star sat down with Seth Meyers on Tuesday's Late Night, and couldn't help but smile as she reflected on her the arrival of her daughter Chelsea's baby girl in December.
"I flew right in… I just missed the birth but I was there right after," O'Donnell said, recounting how she got a call from her 21-year-old daughter, who lives in Wisconsin, and immediately hopped on a plane to visit her in the hospital.
"It was something really beautiful," the 56-year-old actress said of becoming a first-time grandmother. "It's very trite, but it's what everyone says -- when you're a grandparent, it's like [having] a baby times a million. And that's what it felt like."
O'Donnell's daughter welcomed her baby girl, Skylar Rose, on Dec. 18, and the actress reflected on how the joyous news came just a day after the emotionally painful passing of her friend and colleague Penny Marshall, who directed O'Donnell in her feature film debut, the 1992 sports comedy A League of Their Own.
"It was a big, big heartbreak when she died, and then my granddaughter was born the next day," O'Donnell shared. "So I got the call that she had passed, and then I got the call [about my granddaughter]."
"It reminded me about the whole circle of life, and to remember every great thing that I had with her and that she really did give me a film career," she added. "I'll be eternally grateful."
O'Donnell previously opened up about the "trippy" experience of holding her granddaughter for the first time when she sat down with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on the Today show earlier this month, and went on to explain that she's particularly excited about her daughter -- whom she adopted as a baby with her ex-wife, Kelli Carpenter -- getting the chance to welcome her own little girl.
"[It's been great] to see my daughter so happy and so content, and this guy who loves her so much, loving that baby," the actress shared. "I think a lot of adopted kids feel, until they have their own child, they don’t have that unit, to look at someone who looks like them, to see genetically that they have their own kind of history. So it was really a very beautiful thing."
The sweet family moment comes after several tumultuous years for O'Donnell and her daughter, as the two had a number of high-profile public spats, legal issues and a generally chilly relationship, beginning back in 2015.
However, a rep for the actress told ET last June that the pair had reconnected and reconciled after Chelsea learned she was pregnant.
For more on O'Donnell's new adorable granddaughter, check out the video below.
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