Rosie ODonnell Says ABC Delayed a Skit as It Readied Trump Suit

Rosie O’Donnell scored good ratings and warm reviews during a one-week stint guest-hosting ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last month.But ABC felt less enthusiastic about one of the skits she had prepared about President Trump.ABC executives made her delay a monologue skit mocking Mr.

Trump, she said on a recent podcast, because it was preparing to sue his administration.ABC has been ensnared for months in an escalating conflict with the Federal Communications Commission, which initiated an unexpected early review of ABC’s coveted local broadcast licenses.In the middle of Ms.

O’Donnell’s week on air, ABC’s parent company, Disney, took the rare step of suing the agency, accusing it of violating the First Amendment with that review.The former talk-show host said on “The Jann Arden Podcast” that she had planned to close her opening-night monologue by singing “Donnie Boy,” an anti-Trump spoof of the Irish ballad “Danny Boy.”But shortly before taping on Aug.17, she said, “the network called and said, ‘We don’t want you to do it.’ Now I had five minutes to prepare a different ending to the monologue.” Ms.

O’Donnell said she discovered why the next morning.On Aug.

18, Disney filed its suit.“The next day when I woke up, I went, ‘Now I understand,’” Ms.O’Donnell said on the podcast.

“Had they said to me, ‘There’s something coming down corporately tomorrow, and we would prefer you waited,’ I just would have waited without being so, ‘What’s happening! What’s happening!’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....