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Rosie O'Donnell alleged that ABC has nixed the swipe she planned to take at Donald Trump when she guest-hosts Jimmy Kimmel Live! this month.
The 64-year-old has carried on a 20-year feud with Trump and relocated to Ireland in order to avoid living under his second US presidency.
She has returned briefly to America in order to join the rotating stable of celebrities filling in for Kimmel during the late-night host's summer vacation.
One of the bits she was hoping to perform was her parody of If I Only Had a Brain, the Scarecrow's song from the classic 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.
She claimed the network 'told me I can't, that they couldn't get permission for the parody because it's political content,' on the podcast On with Kara Swisher.
However a source familiar with the situation offered a starkly different account to the Daily Mail, revealing: 'It is a standard song clearance that is actually still in process.'
The Daily Mail has contacted ABC for comment.
Rosie O'Donnell alleged that ABC has nixed the swipe she planned to take at Donald Trump when she guest-hosts Jimmy Kimmel Live! this month; O'Donnell pictured in June
The 64-year-old has carried on a 20-year feud with Trump and relocated to Ireland in order to avoid living under his second US presidency; Trump pictured in the Oval Office on Monday
O'Donnell regaled Swisher with some sample lines from the number, singing: 'His approval rate is 30, his diaper’s always dirty, I think the guy’s insane. He ain’t no stable genius, got a teeny, tiny penis, and he doesn’t have a brain.'
The musical numbers in The Wizard of Oz were the work of the seminal songwriting duo of composer Harold Arlen and lyricist EY 'Yip' Harburg.
Ray Bolger, the Broadway star of such confections as Where's Charley?, performed If I Only Had a Brain as the Scarecrow with Judy Garland as Dorothy.
Although L Frank Baum's original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has passed into public domain, the rights to the 1939 film are currently held by Warner Bros.
The Daily Mail has contacted Warner Bros for comment.
O'Donnell will be fronting Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a week beginning August 17, during which time 'I plan on doing whatever we can and working with the writers on his team and honoring just how brave and bold he has been.'
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was briefly suspended last September after its host suggested that Charlie Kirk's killer may have been part of the 'MAGA gang,' prompting Trump's FCC chairman to publicly threaten a probe into the show.
The early murder investigation indicated that the accused gunman Tyler Robinson held leftist views and allegedly texted his live-in transgender lover Lance Twiggs, aka Luna, that he shot the conservative influencer because he 'had enough of his hatred.'
Kimmel's suspension met with an explosive outcry from Hollywood, and ABC backtracked, restoring his show to the airwaves within a week.
Robinson, 23, is now standing trial for Kirk's murder in Utah, where if convicted he could face execution by either lethal injection or firing squad.
She is part of the rotating stable of celebrities filling on for Kimmel during his summer vacation; Kimmel pictured in May at Adam Carrolla's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony
One of the bits she was hoping to perform was her parody of If I Only Had a Brain, a song Ray Bolger sang with Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz
Kimmel announced his summer holiday in late June, joking on the air that he would be 'taking the next two months off, this time voluntarily.'
To laughter from the live audience, he added: 'I asked one of our commander-in-chief’s all-time favorites, Rosie O’Donnell, to be here to keep the hits coming.'
Among the other guest-hosts he assembled was Jelly Roll - who is in the midst of a publicity whirlwind over his divorce from Bunnie XO - as well as Colman Domingo, Anthony Anderson and Tiffany Haddish.
When Swisher asked O'Donnell how she planned to discuss Trump on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the A League of Their Own actress responded: 'I think that I plan on doing what Jimmy Kimmel has done so beautifully, which is giving it to him in a comedic, honest, truthful way, and I will do that as big as I can.'
Her enmity with Trump dates back to 2006, when she was a host on The View and denounced him on-air for presenting himself as a 'moral authority' during a Miss USA cocaine scandal despite his own two divorces and well-publicized adultery.
Their distaste for one another sprang back into the public eye when he mocked her onstage during a Republican primary debate in 2015.
After moderator Megyn Kelly confronted Trump for having referred to women with such epithets as 'fat pigs,' 'slobs' and 'dogs,' he joked: 'Only Rosie O'Donnell.'
O'Donnell has emerged as one of his regular celebrity critics throughout both his presidential terms, the second of which prompted her to move abroad.
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