Ellen DeGeneres has been branded a "transphobic" after she made a joke at the Oscar Awards on Sunday.

The talk show host - who is openly gay - has been criticized by fans after she joked that Liza Minnelli looked like a drag queen at the glamorous event, held in Los Angeles, at the weekend. "Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I've ever seen," Ellen, who was hosting the awards, said to Liza at the ceremony before adding, "Good job, sir."

Viewers took to Twitter afterwards to hit out at Ellen for her remark. "I did not appreciate Ellen's mean joke about Liza. I found it transphobic and disrespectful [sic]," Bruce LaBruce wrote. While Greastzok tweeted, "Are we going to address the fact that ellen blatantly called liza minelli a man you'd think she would know better im extremely disappointed. i literally just sat there in disbelief when she said that i was like did she actually just say that [sic]."

However, Liza, 67, didn't appear to take offence from the joke and claims the 56-year-old comedian didn't mean "any harm" by it. "I think she thought it would be funny, but she never stopped after she said it and said 'my friend Liza Minnelli.' So I think it went a little stray on her. I don't think she meant any harm at all, and she's a wonderful lady," she told TMZ.