As Moira Rose, Catherine O'Hara taught me to roll with life's plot twists
#Catherine O’Hara #Moira Rose #Schitt’s Creek #Andrea Javor #displacement #housing instability #grief #tribute
📌 Key Takeaways
- Writer Andrea Javor credits Catherine O’Hara’s character, Moira Rose, with helping her cope with 29 home relocations.
- The author used the comedy 'Schitt’s Creek' as a survival guide during divorce, layoffs, and financial instability.
- Moira Rose’s 'theatrical' approach to displacement taught Javor to reframe her life changes as plot twists rather than failures.
- Following O’Hara’s death in early 2026, Javor reflects on how the actress’s performance gave her the dignity to navigate an unstable housing market.
📖 Full Retelling
Writer Andrea Javor published a poignant tribute to Catherine O’Hara on February 5, 2026, following the actress's recent death, detailng how O'Hara’s portrayal of Moira Rose on 'Schitt’s Creek' helped her navigate a lifetime of displacement and personal loss. Writing from her perspective as a marketing executive and author, Javor reflects on how the fictional character’s theatrical resilience provided a blueprint for surviving 29 different moves and multiple life crises. The essay serves as both an appreciation of O'Hara's comedic genius and a personal memoir of using pop culture as a survival mechanism during periods of financial and emotional ruin.
Javor’s connection to the show began in 2018, a pivotal year marked by her second divorce and a leave of absence from her high-profile career. Drawing parallels between the Rose family’s fall from affluence to a small-town motel and her own transition from a suburban dream home to a series of rentals, Javor explains how Moira Rose’s eccentric dignity offered a way out of shame. Rather than viewing her lack of housing stability as a character flaw, the author learned to reframe her frequent relocations as whimsical plot twists, adopting Moira’s "main character energy" to maintain her poise in corporate and social settings.
The narrative follows Javor through the various stages of her life, from a childhood defined by upwardly mobile relocations to an adulthood marred by layoffs and rent hikes. In each instance, O’Hara’s performance provided a sense of permission to be "lovably eccentric" rather than broken. Even when faced with a stagnant 2024 housing market and exorbitant rent increases, the author found strength in Moira’s refusal to compromise her identity, eventually finding a permanent home in a townhouse. By channeling the character's defiance, Javor transformed her history of 29 moves from a record of failure into a story of endurance.
🏷️ Themes
Resilience, Pop Culture, Identity
📚 Related People & Topics
Moira Rose
Fictional character from Schitt's Creek
Moira Rose is a fictional character in the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek, first aired on CBC and Pop from 2015 to 2020. Moira is introduced as the eccentric former soap opera star wife of Johnny Rose and mother of their adult children, David and Alexis. She is often portrayed as the family member m...
🔗 Entity Intersection Graph
Connections for Moira Rose:
- 🌐 Hollywood (1 shared articles)
- 🌐 SCTV (1 shared articles)
- 🌐 Pulmonary embolism (1 shared articles)
- 👤 Home Alone (1 shared articles)
📄 Original Source Content
By Andrea Javor Guest contributor Feb. 5, 2026 3 AM PT 5 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix max-w-170 mt-7.5 mb-10 mx-auto" data-subscriber-content> The memorable musings of Catherine O’Hara’s character, Moira Rose, on “Schitt’s Creek” were more than entertainment for me. Moira was my touchstone as I struggled with the reality of an unusually transient life, having lived in 29 homes by the age of 46. When I heard that O’Hara had died last week, I nestled under my favorite couch blanket and hit play on “Schitt’s Creek.” I’d seen the series countless times, often quoting the hilarious lines that she delivered with such singular eccentricity — dripping with sequin-laced cunning. Like the Rose family, I was forced to move. As a child, new addresses were presented as progress — for your dad’s job — as my family absorbed an ethos in the ’80s and ’90s to go where opportunity sprouted. For me that meant five schools in five years between the ages of 13 and 18, with only the promise that I was becoming an excellent judge of character by being dropped into new social milieux over and over. As an adult, moving became quieter and more tinged with shame, prompted by divorce, a layoff and rent hikes every handful of years as I tried to “make it” in the big city. Advertisement I started watching “Schitt’s Creek” in 2018 as the ink was drying on my second set of divorce papers. I was 40 on a leave of absence from my high-profile executive marketing job. Most days I wandered through my three-story suburban dream house, lying on my stepchildren’s beds and sobbing. Moira’s quips brought me closer to a smile than anything else at the time as she called her TV son, David, a “disgruntled pelican,” and as she famously didn’t kno...