Rosie O'Donnell was 'judgy' about pal Ricki Lake's facelift… before hypocritical star got the surgery herself

Ricki Lake is opening up about how her longtime friend Rosie O'Donnell had a 'judgy' attitude about her 2024 facelift before doing an about-face when she had the same procedure done.

While appearing on the most recent episode of The Weekend View, Lake said that O'Donnell's objection to facelifts for political reasons evaporated after she saw the results her expat pal had gotten.

'She’s my really good friend – we talk all the time – and she was a little judgy. She would admit it,' Lake, 58, claimed during the interview.

O'Donnell's representative declined to comment on Lake's statement. The Daily Mail has also reached out to Lake's representatives for comment but has not yet received a response.

Lake recalled her 64-year-old pal asking her: 'Why do you need it? You don’t need it.'

But the Hairspray star said O'Donnell's views suddenly shifted once she had lost an impressive 60lbs via the GLP-1 weight-loss drug Mounjaro, which she began taking in response to being diagnosed with type-2 diabetes in 2022.

'Then, sure enough, she lost a bunch of weight on Mounjaro, and she went and had it done,' Lake said, before adding that her pal O'Donnell 'looks phenomenal' after getting a facelift.

Despite her previous objections to women getting facelifts, O'Donnell was open with her fans about the procedure, which she had done in January of this year.

The comedian spoke about her reasons for getting a facelift in an Instagram post from May, in which she showed off her results.

'I used to feel very strongly about facelifts / Not casually – morally,' she captioned her post in stanzas, as if it were a poem. 'I had assigned myself as head / of all women who would never – ever.

'I thought it was a betrayal,' O'Donnell continued. 'Of feminism. Of aging. / Of our team of women worldwide. / And then I lost 50 pounds….'

O'Donnell emphasized that: 'It wasn’t wrinkles – / it was gravity...

'I’d look in the mirror and think, this isn’t aging, / this is… melting with intention. / I tried to be evolved about it. / and say things like, / “This is natural. This is earned.”'

But O'Donnell said she eventually had the realization that 'There’s a point where acceptance / starts to feel like lying.'

In her Substack, O'Donnell continued: 'And then I had this quiet realization … if I’m teaching [my child] anything, it can’t be that my body belongs to an idea either. Even a good idea. Even feminism.' 

Then, in July, O'Donnell – who moved to Ireland to avoid Donald Trump's policies – spoke more about her dissatisfaction with her face and her loose skin from her Mounjaro-fueled weight loss.

'People in Ireland said, "Rosie, are you all right, love?" I’m like, "It’s my face. I actually feel happy here."'

She continued: 'I didn’t want my face to be frozen. I had to wrestle with myself because as a feminist I always felt [facelifts were a response to] the male gaze and not anything I believe in.' 

However, O'Donnell claimed that it was her 13-year-old nonbinary child, Clay, who helped change her mind when they told her: 'Mommy, girls look up to you. What does your legacy stand for if you do this?' 

Before O'Donnell had considered getting a facelift, her friend Lake went under the knife of Dr. Allen Foulad in 2024.

Earlier this year, Lake admitted that she made an 'impulsive' decision to get the facelift, which was inspired by her own dissatisfaction with her face after losing 40lbs.

In July, the former talk show host celebrated the two-year anniversary of her procedure with a series of snaps of her since-healed visage, along with before-and-after comparisons.

'Happy 2 year anniversary to me. Yes, 2 years ago today, I had a face lift,' she admitted. 'Specifically, for those wondering, I had a deep plane lower face and neck lift along with a mild co2 laser,' she continued. 

Lake praised Foulad for making 'the experience a wonderful one,' and she boasted that her 'results have been remarkable, natural and long-lasting.'

Lake included two recent photos of herself 'without makeup or filter' to show how pleased she was with her results after two years. 

'Back in 2023, I had lost 40 lbs over the course of a year, and did not like the extra skin that hung from below my chin,' she explained. 

'It was never going to tighten up by itself,' she continued. 'I took a leap of faith and I'm so grateful I did.'

Lake also said it was a step in the right direction that more public figures were being open with their fans about their cosmetic procedures. 

'I am also very glad to see so many people over these past couple of years opening up about their own plastic surgery journeys,' she wrote.