Barr holds little back
A day later, star returns to Twitter with dizzying responses.
Roseanne Barr is now targeting her co-stars.
It’s admittedly hard to keep up with Barr’s dizzying response to her selfmade catastrophe Tuesday, when she fired off a racist tweet aimed at Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and then saw ABC cancel her top-rated reboot.
After her tweet, Barr swore off Twitter (again), then returned with a series of apologies: to Jarrett, her fans and the people who work for her. She said she does “not want (her tweet) defended-it was egregious Indefensible.” At one point, the comedian blamed “Ambien tweeting.”
Yet in the middle of the night on Wednesday, she began lashing out at co-stars who publicly spoke out against the tweet that ultimately cost them all their jobs.
Michael Fishman, who played D.J. Conner on the show, released a lengthy statement Tuesday saying
Roseanne’s “cast, crew, writers and production staff strived for inclusiveness.” He added: “The words of one person do not exemplify the thinking of all involved.”
Barr hit back: “i created the platform for that inclusivity and you know it.ME. You throw me under the bus. nice!”
Sara Gilbert, who plays Darlene, called her TV mom’s tweet “abhorrent” and said Barr’s comments “do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show. I am disappointed in her actions to say the least.”
Barr replied: “Wow! unreal.”
A Barr fan then called Gilbert “ungrateful, and very disloyal.”
Barr replied, “i feel bad for @POTUS -he goes thru this every single day.”
In a later tweet, Barr made an about-face, saying she forgives Gilbert. “I understand her position and why she said what she said. i forgive her. It just shocked me a bit, but I indeed (screwed) up.” She added to another user: “She’s distancing herself from me and my tweet-she has to.”
The Conner family feud makes it all the more unlikely Roseanne could manage a return to the air.
The comedy returned to ABC in
March, two decades after it ended its first run from 1988 to 1997.
The much-awaited 10th season’s two-episode opener attracted 18.2 million viewers in preliminary Nielsen ratings, making it the season’s top premiere. The return prompted ABC to quickly order another season.
But the show has been beset by controversy. In dealing with controversial issues such as health care, Social Security and opioid addiction, the reboot received backlash for some of its pointed jokes, including jabs at minority-led series Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat.
The latest brouhaha began over a tweet sent by Barr to a fan who accused Jarrett of helping “hide” misdeeds for the Obama administration.
“muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr wrote in a now-deleted tweet, using Jarrett’s initials. Jarrett, 61, is African American and worked for Obama from 2009 to 2017.
Barr later apologized, calling her tweet “a bad joke,” but it failed to halt a growing backlash. In a move that surprised many, Channing Dungey, president of ABC Entertainment, swiftly issued a statement announcing the cancellation of the network’s No. 1 show.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” Dungey’s statement read.
On Tuesday night, Barr began retweeting followers who called ABC’s decision to ax her show hypocritical and replied that she thought that the target of her tweet was “Saudi” and didn’t realize the racist implications of her post. At one point, she defended herself by tweeting: “yes, I mistakenly thought (Jarrett) was white.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, guys!!” she wrote in a separate post. “I just want to apologize to the hundreds of people, and wonderful writers (all liberal) and talented actors who lost their jobs on my show due to my stupid tweet.”