New York — She laughed, she cried, and for just a few seconds Friday, Rosie O'Donnell was even struck speechless.

The former talk show host proved resilient during a second day on the stand in her death match against a German publishing giant over the nosedive of Rosie Magazine.

O'Donnell was stymied, however, when Gruner + Jahr lawyers challenged her to detail how the magazine's content had been affected by the editorial "coup d'etat" O'Donnell has charged them with orchestrating starting in July 2002.

Earlier, she had unfurled a laundry list of changes made to the magazine during the final two issues before she quit. But this time, under the glare of the spotlight and with a packed courtroom looking on, O'Donnell drew a blank.

It was one of the few times that Gruner + Jahr lawyers were able to corner the defiant O'Donnell, who claims that editorial control was wrongly wrested from her by executives eager to turn the struggling publication around. 

The "coup" is one of several breaches of contract O'Donnell claims in her $125 million countersuit against Gruner + Jahr. The publishing company, which filed its $100 million suit first, claims O'Donnell quit without cause, walking away from the publication in September 2002 and stranding the company without a figurehead for its celebrity magazine.

Outside the courthouse Friday evening, O'Donnell reflected on her two-day stint as a witness. 

"It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be," she said, adding, "I will not appeal the verdict, whatever it is."

On the stand, O'Donnell detailed what she saw as a broad plan to reduce the editorial control she had enjoyed during the magazine's first 14 issues.

The "trouble" with the magazine began soon after new editor-in-chief Susan Toepfer was brought in to turn the flagging publication around, O'Donnell testified. Toepfer and O'Donnell clashed from the outset, most notably over a September 2002 cover featuring actors from "The Sopranos."

Rather than offering O'Donnell a range of options, she said Toepfer only gave her one cover choice — a picture that featured O'Donnell front and center.

"I made it very clear from the onset that I had no desire to be on the cover," O'Donnell testified Friday morning.  "I feel as though it goes against what it is people like about me. I try to lift other people up and show their worth and their value."

Then there were the meetings during which, O'Donnell claims, CEO Dan Brewster and other company executives told magazine staff to answer to Toepfer, not O'Donnell, despite her status as half owner and editorial director. 

O'Donnell left the company two issues after Toepfer, a former top editor at People magazine, arrived.

Gruner + Jahr witnesses have cited controversial magazine covers and stories as evidence that O'Donnell sought to sink the magazine on purpose when things turned sour. 

But O'Donnell said there was nothing new about planned stories on Robert Blake, Christopher Reeve and Mike Tyson.

"If you own a roller rink and you make a deal to sell Coke and then you decide you want to sell Tang you're allowed to sell Tang, but you can't sell it in a Coke can," she said, drawing applause from the courtroom.

With the six-day trial set to conclude Monday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman cut to the chase of the dispute, cornering lawyers after testimony on Friday with pointed questions that could signal his eventual decision.

After learning that Rosie Magazine managed to lose "$19 million in just 16 months" (about $6 million from O'Donnell, the rest from Gruner + Jahr), Gammerman asked attorneys whether a payout clause had been built into the agreement in case one of the parties "walked away."

The lack of clarity in the joint venture agreement's section on editorial control is one the main reasons the dispute has landed in court. 

Both O'Donnell and Brewster testified that they had never given the contract a thorough review. Gammerman will now have to interpret what each side had in mind when they signed the agreement in 2000.

A key paragraph doles out editorial control to O'Donnell, with a catch: Her authority is subject to Brewster's veto and is void during the last week before each issue of the magazine is finalized.

While the case is essentially a contract dispute, the trial has included sordid allegations from both sides, including testimony from a Gruner + Jahr marketing executive and cancer survivor Cindy Spengler, who said O'Donnell warned her that "liars get cancer."

The cancer remark has little to do with the breach of contract allegations at the center of this trial, but it is a glaring example of Gruner + Jahr's claim that O'Donnell was a "foul-mouthed tyrant."

From the start of their cross-examination of O'Donnell, G + J lawyers attacked her for the remark, forcing her to admit that she denied the attack in her deposition and in a People cover story.

O'Donnell owned up to the remark Friday morning, but said she had apologized to Spengler.

Spengler, who watched the morning's testimony from the back of a packed courtroom, said O'Donnell was lying.

"She didn't apologize," said Spengler. "The next time she called she left a message ... saying 'You tell Cindy Spengler I'm unbearably disappointed with her, and if she wants to speak with me she can talk to my lawyer.'"

O'Donnell's publicist, Cindy Berger, denied the allegation.

"She apologized the next day. Rosie felt badly then, she regrets it now, and she will always regret it.  But if Cindy Spengler chooses not to remember that apology then that's her decision."

Brenda Murphy, a six-time guest on O'Donnell's talk show, was in court Friday with a friend, Maureen Fahey, to support O'Donnell.  Each held a rose that they handed to O'Donnell as she waded through a throng of onlookers and media.

"Rosie to me is the queen of hearts and I just wanted to show her support," said Murphy. "I just know she's a truthful person and I wanted to hear her side of the story."