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Rosie O’Donnell took to Twitter to call out Joel Osteen after he closed his church over the weekend when Hurricane Harvey rolled through Houston, Texas. The former daytime talk show host sent a message to the celebrity pastor, encouraging him to own up to his mistakes.
Check out the tweet below.
Osteen has been getting a ton of criticism after Lakewood Church closed over the weekend due to the storm. There seemed to be some confusion about why the church closed, but Osteen defended himself a few times over the past couple of days. First, Osteen said that it was too difficult for people to travel to the church during the storm. Then, Osteen said that the city of Houston had shelters set up, insinuating that the church’s help wasn’t needed. He even went so far as to say that the city “didn’t ask” for help from him or from Lakewood.
“If people were here, they’d realize there were safety issues. We were just being precautious (sic), but the main thing is the city didn’t ask us to become a shelter then,” he said during a television interview, according to Huff Post.
On Tuesday, Osteen opened his church to the public. People have been sending all kinds of donations from clothing to diapers and people who have been displaced by the hurricane have gone to the church for shelter.
Even still, O’Donnell feels as though Osteen did wrong and that he should “fess up.” Within 15 minutes of the tweet being posted, over 100 people retweeted it and over 300 liked it — there are more than a handful of people who agree with O’Donnell’s message and believe that Osteen should have offered his church as a shelter to those in need long before the internet got involved.
Despite Osteen’s steps to help Houston, people have been tearing him apart on social media and continue to do so.