Roseanne’s new show axed after star’s ‘abhorrent’ tweet
Live video could have derailed trial
ONE of the biggest shows on US TV was cancelled abruptly yesterday after its star compared one of Barack Obama’s former advisers to an ape.
‘Roseanne’ was axed by ABC after Roseanne Barr tweeted about Valerie Jarrett, who is black: ‘If muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.’
Earlier Miss Barr had retweeted two articles about former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson after he was jailed for contempt of court.
Miss Barr, 65, has been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and has often promoted conspiracy theories on social media, but her racist rant yesterday caused uproar.
Within hours of Miss Barr’s tweets, ABC issued a one line statement from its president Channing Dungey, the first black woman to hold the post. It said that Miss Barr’s comments were ‘abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values’. Bob Iger, the chairman of ABC’s parent company Disney, tweeted: ‘There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.’ Roseanne, which co-stars John Goodman, originally aired from 1988 to 1997 and won over a generation with its frank portrayal of white working class Americans.
Roseanne was the No.3 rated show in the US and was making millions of dollars for ABC. Eighteen million tuned into the debut of the sitcom’s reboot and Mr Trump called Miss Barr to congratulate her.
The new season, the show’s tenth, began in March and ran until last week by which time it got 27million viewers for its finale. Aside from the comment about Miss Jarrett, Miss Barr also outrageously tweeted that billionaire investor George Soros, 87, was a ‘nazi’ who ‘turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps’. She referred to Chelsea Clinton as ‘Chelsea Soros Clinton’ because Mr Soros is a big Democratic donor.
As the backlash began, CNN reported that advertisers were getting nervous about paying for commercials on the second season.
Miss Barr tweeted: ‘I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me – my joke was in bad taste.’
ABC had looked the other way over a tweet Miss Barr sent in 2013 in which she said that Susan Rice, President Obama’s former National Security Advisor, was ‘a man with big swinging ape balls’. ABC also apparently had no problem with Roseanne retweeting two stories about Robinson, who was jailed in a case which Right-wing activists claimed was state censorship. One of the tweets read: ‘Democracy dies in silence. The Sun doesn’t shine anymore. #FreeTommyRobinson’.
THE founder of the far-Right English Defence League has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court. Tommy Robinson, 35, was arrested after broadcasting on Facebook Live outside a court, putting a major trial at risk of collapse.
He ignored a tight reporting restriction which prevents any reporting of the case until its outcome – likely to be later this year.
Robinson’s video, filmed during an hour-long racist rant outside Leeds Crown Court on Friday, was viewed a quarter of a million times.
He tried to confront defendants as they went in, and made prejudicial remarks in earshot of people entering – potentially including jurors.
Following his arrest, Robinson’s supporters protested outside Downing Street, claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy and had only been exercising his right to freedom of speech.
Yesterday it emerged Robinson had been sentenced to ten months in jail for contempt of court and a further three months for breaching a suspended sentence imposed at Canterbury Crown Court for filming in the building.
Reporting of his imprisonment had also been restricted, but Judge Geoffrey Marson QC yielded to a challenge from the media yesterday.
Sentencing, the judge said: ‘Everyone understands the right to freedom of speech but there are responsibilities and obligations. He was approximate to where defendants go in and approximate to where jurors go in. He was making a video … referring to this case … I regard it as a serious aggravating feature that he was encouraging others to share it.’
He told Robinson: ‘I am not sure you appreciate the potential consequence of what you have done. If the jurors in my present trial get to know of this video … it will mean a re-trial, costing hundreds and hundreds and thousands of pounds.’
Robinson, who pleaded guilty to contempt, appeared under his real name, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
His lawyer Matthew Harding warned the right-wing activist would be in danger of being attacked by other inmates. But the judge said only an immediate jail term could be imposed.
Married father- of- three Robinson founded the English Defence League in Luton in 2009 before resigning from the group in 2013.
Far-Right figures claimed Robinson had been prosecuted for his beliefs, rather than contempt of court.
Gerrard Batten, Ukip leader, said the arrest was reminiscent of a ‘police state’. Dutch anti- Muslim campaigner Geert Wilders tweeted: ‘Free Tommy Robinson! Restore Freedom Of Speech!’