Brad Paisley Says Trump Skit Got Cut From 2015 CMAs Monologue

Remember that surprise appearance by William Shatner during Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood's opening monologue at the 2015 CMA Awards? As it turns out, the actor and comedian was a last-minute replacement for presidential candidate Donald Trump.

During Paisley's keynote speech at the 2015 Billboard Touring Conference, the self-described "wannabe stand-up comedian" (quote via Billboard) shared the idea behind the cut opening skit.

First, he and Underwood decided that they wanted to modify a country song to feature dialogue about current events -- an idea they brought to life by turning Patsy Cline's "Crazy" into "Cray Cray" during their monologue. But in addition to that parody, they also turned the Judds' "Love Can Build a Bridge" into "Trump Can Build a Bridge," featuring Trump as the Wizard of Oz.

"Like, 'I am Trump, the great and powerful,'" Paisley explains with a laugh.

The plan was that, during the monologue, Underwood would take the cord to the projector that was showing the clip and unplug it. However, "standards and practices and equal time laws," according to Paisley, prevented the bit from being used, and "24 hours before, the lawyers said we couldn't do it."

So, Underwood and Paisley placed a last-minute call to Shatner, and the sketch featuring the actor as a stormtrooper was used instead.

"To have written the last two minutes of the monologue Tuesday at midnight ... it was stressful," Paisley recalls.

The singer says that he still has the video featuring Trump -- and, boy, would we like to see it!