‘Roseanne’ canceled after tweet
ABC canceled the hit sitcom “Roseanne” on Tuesday, May 29, hours after the show’s star and co-creator, Roseanne Barr, posted a racist tweet about a former top adviser to President Barack Obama who is black.
Early on Tuesday, Barr posted a comment about Valerie Jarrett, the former adviser to Obama, that said if “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”
Barr, whose ABC sitcom about the Conner family ended a successful comeback season last
week, initially dismissed accusations that the comment was racist, defending it as “a joke.” She also said on Twitter, “ISLAM is not a RACE, lefties. Islam includes EVERY RACE of people.”
Barr later deleted the post about Jarrett and initially said nothing about the reference to “The Planet of the Apes.” About a half-hour later, she offered an apology.
“I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans,” she wrote. “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.”
Barr also said she was “leaving Twitter.”
Hours later, ABC canceled her show.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC’s Entertainment President Channing Dungey said in a statement.
The fallout over the Twitter post had begun earlier. Wanda Sykes, the black comedian who served as a consulting producer on “Roseanne” this season, said she was leaving the sitcom. Whitney Cummings — a showrunner for the revived comedy and one of its most outspoken liberal supporters — had already left the series this month.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said on Twitter that Barr’s comparing Jarrett to an “APE is racist and inexcusable. ABC must take action NOW!” Tom Arnold, Barr’s former husband and co-star, called her Twitter posts “dangerous.” And MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said on Twitter, “There is no apology she can make that justifies @ABC turning a blind eye to this bigotry by airing another second of her show.”
On Tuesday, before she apologized, Barr had an exchange with Chelsea Clinton after Barr referred to Clinton as “Chelsea Soros Clinton,” a reference to George Soros, the billionaire liberal donor who is often the focus of conservative critics. Donald Trump Jr. shared one of Barr’s posts in the exchange.
Barr’s often incendiary use of Twitter has stayed in the background amid the “Roseanne” revival’s success.
Months before the show premiered, she said that her children had taken her social media accounts away from her. It was no small matter: Barr has used Twitter to promote conspiracy theories and some ABC executives were worried that she might say something offensive enough to lead viewers or advertisers to revolt.
Barr has been outspoken in her support of President Trump, who called to congratulate her on the ratings for the show’s premiere episode, and in her antipathy toward Hillary Clinton.
But as viewers flocked to “Roseanne,” to the delight of ABC executives, Barr returned to Twitter. None of her posts threatened the show’s success, although some did attract scrutiny. One of Barr’s messages accused a survivor of the high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., of giving a Nazi salute; another involved a conspiracy theory about Trump quietly breaking up a child sex trafficking ring including prominent Democrats.
“Roseanne” will probably finish the 2017-18 television season as the No. 3 rated show, behind two NBC programs: “Sunday Night Football” and “This is Us.” More than 18 million people on average have watched “Roseanne” this season, according to Nielsen’s delayed viewing data.
The show was a boon for ABC and part of a strategy to appeal to viewers in the American heartland. “Roseanne” had nine episodes this past season, and it was scheduled to return in the fall with another 13. When ABC hosted a showcase for advertisers two weeks ago to preview its fall lineup, “Roseanne” took center stage.
“If anyone came to play a drinking game for the number of times we mention Roseanne,” Ben Sherwood, the president of Walt Disney Co.’s and ABC’s television group, said from the stage at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall, “you’re welcome.”
Barr may have been front and center then, but the series was an afterthought on the Walt Disney Co.’s most recent earnings call with investors. Despite its outsize success, “Roseanne” was not mentioned in the company’s prepared remarks, and it was only referenced after an investor asked a question about how the company felt about the network’s position going into a new TV season.