Property tycoon-turned-reality TV king Donald Trump and his fellow Celebrity Apprentice producers are trying to find a "formula" that will deal with rocker Bret Michaels' absence from the show.

The Poison star, who is a contestant on the current season of the hit show, is fighting for his life in a Texas hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage last week - and is unlikely to make another appearance on the reality TV series.

And Trump, who hosts the show and is an executive producer, admits he's trying to come up with a way to address Michaels' condition on TV.

He tells U.S. TV news network MSNBC, "I can't imagine Bret coming back in four weeks and being, like, 100 per cent, because supposedly the speech is very slurred and lots of other things are going on. Hopefully that'll be the worst, because the worst is not so good.

"We're gonna have to come up with some formula. That will be the easy part. The hard part is getting Bret better."