Roseanne apologizes for Nazi claim
Roseanne Barr arrives for the 2018 Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif.
It took her almost two weeks, but Roseanne Barr finally admitted George Soros was not complicit in the Holocaust.
In the middle of a Twitter rant that cost her Roseanne and was later blamed on Ambien, the actress accused Soros of being “a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth” on May 29.
On Monday, the actress tweeted a belated mea culpa.
“I apologize sincerely to @georgesoros. His family was persecuted by The Nazis & survived The Holocaust only because of the strength & resourcefulness of his father.”
That particular conspiracy has long been debunked: Soros, who grew up in Hungary, was only 9 when the Second World War began.
Soros’ son, Alexander, wrote in an article for the New York Daily News that his father is “the enemy of choice for despots at home and around the world” because of his “lifelong dedication to human rights and social justice.”
The closest Soros, now 87, came was when he was left in the care of an official of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture who, at the behest of his grandfather, shielded the young boy and pretended he was his godson. Soros, 13 at the time, joined the official in “taking inventory of the estate of a Jewish family that had fled earlier under duress,” according to Alexander, but never participated.
The apology comes weeks after Barr made a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, the former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. ABC cancelled Barr’s Roseanne reboot that day. New York Daily News
McGowan gets felony coke charge
Agrand jury in Loudon County, Virginia indicted actress and activist Rose McGowan on one felony count of cocaine possession on Monday.
Charging documents say cocaine was found in a wallet McGowan left behind on a plane last year. McGowan has maintained the cocaine isn’t hers, suggesting in court papers that the drugs were planted at the behest of movie producer Harvey Weinstein. He couldn’t i mmediately be reached for comment.
McGowan was among the first to accuse Weinstein of sexual assault, and she and others say he’s aggressively sought to discredit his accusers. Weinstein has denied all accusations. The Associated Press
Heritage Minute honours activist
A new Heritage Minute recounting the story of gay activist Jim Egan is drawing attention to the fight for equality waged by Canada’s LGBTQ community. Producers at Historica Canada, the organization behind the popular bite-sized moments of history, say the latest addition to its ongoing series will debut online Wednesday. It’s the first time the LGBTQ community has been the focus of a Heritage Minute.
The one-minute clip follows the career of Egan, who spent most of his life trying to change negative perceptions of gay culture in mainstream media. He started by writing opinion columns to newspapers in the early 1950s before eventually becoming one of the first openly gay politicians in Canada.
The Heritage Minute was directed by St. John’s filmmaker Stephen Dunn, whose semiautobiographical Closet Monster won the 2015 Canadian feature film award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Canadian Press
U2 dedicates song to Bourdain
U2 singer Bono honoured the late Anthony Bourdain toward the end of the band’s special performance at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Bono spoke of losing a “lot of inspiring, useful people” over the past few years “who gave up on their own life” alluding to the apparent suicides of musicians Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington, as well as designer Kate Spade.
“And now this great storyteller, who I’m sure has stories he couldn’t tell us. So for Anthony Bourdain, and his friends and family this is a song inspired by a great, great, great friend of ours. His name is Michael Hutchence,” Bono said Monday night before launching into an impassioned version of “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of.” The Grammy-winning song about suicide was written by the band after INXS singer Hutchence was found dead in 1997 of an apparent suicide. The 61-year-old Bourdain was found dead of an apparent suicide last week in France. The Associated Press