Rosie O’Donnell Addresses Lindsay Lohan Comments on ‘Today’

After publicly dismissing Lindsay Lohan‘s latest role in Lifetime’s Elizabeth Taylor biopic, Rosie O’Donnell calls the actress tragic but talented.

On Tuesday, her first day on her new job on Today show’s “Professionals” panel alongside Donny Deutsch and Star Jones, the trio was asked by Matt Lauer whether Lifetime made the right decision in casting Lohan to portray the late screen legend in the TV movie Liz & Dick.

O’Donnell, along with Jones, questioned Lohan’s abilities.

“The last thing she did good, she was 16,” she said passionately, adding, “I don’t think she’s right for the role and I don’t think she’s capable at this point to portray that character.”

PHOTOS: Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)

Lohan, 25, responded on Wednesday, telling Access Hollywood, “It’s funny that someone you don’t know at all can say something so intrusive and so knowing.” But she said she’d been fond of O’Donnell, with whom she did one of her first interviews as a child actress circa The Parent Trap.

The she said/she said continued on Thursday’s Today as O’Donnell — surprised over making headlines for this — drew a parallel between Lohan’s personal setbacks and those of the late Whitney Houston, asking: “Why didn’t anyone say what they knew?”

She did not backtrack from her previous statements, calling Lohan’s transition from promising young star to tabloid target “tragic.”

“To look at Lindsay Lohan you can’t help but feel for her,” O’Donnell said. “And I do not think she’s untalented. I think she’s quite talented.”