Add The New York Post on Google Rosie O’Donnell claimed ABC forced her to pause a skit mocking President Trump during her week-long stint hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” because the network was preparing to sue his administration.
O’Donnell – the former daytime talk show host and “A League of Their Own” actor who fled to Ireland after Trump won the 2024 election – revealed the network interference during an appearance on “The Jann Arden Podcast” earlier this month.
The expat comedian said she was planning to jab at the president with her “Donny Boy” sketch – a play on the Irish folk song “Danny Boy” – on April 17, her first night filling in for Kimmel, but right before filming started, “The network called and said, ‘We don’t want you to do it.’”
“Now I had five minutes to prepare a different monologue,” O’Donnell said, adding that network executives wouldn’t give her a reason for hitting pause on the skit.
“Well, the next day we found out why,” she said. “The next day when I woke up, I went, now I understand.”
On Aug. 18, the Disney-owned network filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission, escalating a monthslong battle with the government as it accused the Trump administration of a “retaliatory campaign.”
“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?’” O’Donnell said.
Her “Donny Boy” sketch aired on the show later in the week, with O’Donnell dedicating the sardonic ditty to a “very special boy.”
ABC did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
O’Donnell also said on the podcast that she wanted to close her last night as a guest host with a segment involving victims of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but “they said that they were certain that could not happen.”
Cindi Berger, a representative for O’Donnell, told The Post that the discussion about the Epstein segment actually took place with Kimmel, not ABC suits.
“Rosie had a conversation with Jimmy before she guest-hosted for him,” Berger said. “She shared her idea about the Epstein survivors, and he told her it would be best for her to do it on YouTube. And she did. She had a great time hosting, loves Jimmy and the show.”
A representative for Kimmel did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
ABC mounted its lawsuit against the Trump administration after FCC Chair Brendan Carr launched a review of eight of Disney’s TV licenses – including ABC channels in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – a year early.
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Carr alleged the early license review was due to ABC’s refusal to cooperate with a separate investigation he was conducting into whether the network was still engaging in the kind of DEI policies that are anathema to the Trump administration.
Earlier this month, the FCC asked a court to dismiss the network’s lawsuit. ABC responded last week by requesting the court deny that effort.
In its lawsuit, ABC alleged the early review was an attempt to silence its lefty shows, including Kimmel’s late-night talk show and “The View,” whose hosts frequently bash the Trump administration.
Carr has repeatedly denied these claims, saying the license renewal review isn’t about free speech but rather the requirement that broadcast networks “operate in the public interest.”
In her podcast appearance, O’Donnell also slammed ABC and CBS for their settlement payments to Trump, accusing them of bending the knee to his administration.
ABC agreed to pay Trump $16 million in 2024 to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ false on-air claim that Trump had been found liable of raping writer E. Jean Carroll. The president was found liable of sexual abuse and defamation, not rape.
O’Donnell – who has publicly traded barbs with Trump for some two decades – repeatedly took aim at the president during her brief hosting gig, though she claimed she was holding back because she knew Kimmel had “stuck his neck out” to bring her on as a guest.
“I made an active choice to approach Trump the way that I did and not aggressively like a pitbull, which scares some people,” she said on the podcast.
“I didn’t have my glasses on on purpose. I had contacts in and I think it reminded people, ‘Oh, remember, we like her.’”
