Rosie O'Donnell's much heralded return to television with her own show came to an unexpected halt on Friday when the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) announced O'Donnell's daily talk show had been axed after five eventful months.

The Huffington Post reported on Monday it was Winfrey's final decision to pull the plug on The Rosie Show.

Before that Winfrey had been O'Donnell's biggest supporter, giving O'Donnell access to her old studio, director, and stage manager. To boost ratings Winfrey also made a surprise appearance during O'Donnell's live debut show in October.

According to The Daily Beast, Oprah visited O'Donnell in her studio before she made the decision to cancel the show.

O'Donnell's return to the daytime airwaves was a bumpy ride from the outset. Along the way, faced with unremarkable ratings, O'Donnell changed her show's entire look and feel, replacing its initial afternoon show look with something much more intimate.

As the show began its initial broadcasts its understood that Winfrey visited O'Donnell on the new set, for an exchange of views that staff members have described as 'awkward.' In a sign of growing discontent, earlier this month O'Donnell put her Chicago home on the market to move show back to her New York City home.

Online news hub The Daily Beast reported on Monday that O'Donnell's had frequent clashes with her Chicago staff, which were described as quite severe. A former employee described the daily work environment to the Daily Beast as a 'hell hole.' However another member of staff contradicted this assessment and told ABC News that these reports were untrue.

O’Donnell will tape her final show for the OWN network on Tuesday, March 20, to air on Friday, March 30.

Meanwhile Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and would be GOP presidential candidate, took the opportunity to gloat over O'Donnell's departure.

'Frankly, that was just going to happen,' Trump told Fox & Friends on Monday. 'I knew it immediately when they announced it. Rosie fails at everything. She had a variety show, it failed. I mean, she — I don’t understand now, somebody else, some moron will come and hire her again to do something else and that will fail.

'At some point, let her rest. Let her go away. She’ll never make it and I’ve said it for years. She’ll never make it! She must have a very good agent.'

Trump then took his vendetta to Twitter, where his glee underscored that he was probably still rankled by Rosie's estimation of his personal life during her stint on The View. At the time she said: 'Left the first wife, had an affair, left the second wife, had an affair. Had kids both times, but he’s the moral compass for twenty year olds in America. Donald, sit and spin, my friend.'