Rosie wants to cut ties to documentary

USA Today/March 21, 2002

Talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell wants her name and voice removed from an Oscar-nominated documentary because its filmmakers have ties to a group described as an anti-gay cult. "Let me just say I'm anti-cult," she said on her show Wednesday.

Artists and Orphans: A True Drama, a film about a theater group that helps children in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, is up for best documentary short subject at Sunday's Academy Awards. The filmmakers are members of Fourth Way School, a personal-development group that bans homosexuals and does not believe gays should adopt, says cult expert Rick Ross.

O'Donnell, who recently came out as gay, has three adopted children. O'Donnell's publicist, Cindi Berger, says her client "feels very angry and disappointed that the background of this organization wasn't disclosed."

Filmmakers and Oscar officials did not return calls.