What’s going on with Roseanne Barr after the cancelation of her show?
Barr blew up her show and much of her career Tuesday morning after tweeting a joke calling Jarrett, who is African American the child of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes. The tweet was deleted a few hours later, but it was not enough to save her show, which was canceled after a cabal of ABC and Disney executives ruled that the matter was untenable.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” read a terse statement from ABC Entertainment chief Channing Dungey, which moved quickly Tuesday to expunge any history that Roseanne ever existed. Barr was also dropped by her talent agency, ICM Partners.
After issuing an apology for some racist comments, Roseanne Barr overnight slammed some of her former co-stars and retweeted defenses of her racist comments that prompted ABC to cancel her hit TV series. But within minutes of the apology, Barr quickly began retweeting defenses of her comments and later this morning criticized “Roseanne” co-stars Sara Gilbert and Michael Fishman, who both released statements Tuesday critical of the show’s star.
Fishman, who played Barr’s son D.J. Conner on both the original and the reboot, tweeted “today is one of the hardest days of my life” and condemned her tweet, saying, “we must stand-up against; bias, hatred, bigotry and ignorance.”
Barr, 65, responded:
“My character was designed to represent the inclusive nature of my views. To represent portions of society often marginalized. In this moment it is important to be clear,” said Fishman in part of a lengthy statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday after Barr came under fire for a racist tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. “We must stand-up against; bias, hatred, bigotry and ignorance to make society a better place for all.”
“I created the platform for that inclusivity and you know it.” Barr snapped. “You throw me under the bus. nice!”
Looks like she’s following her pal, Donald Trump, in using Twitter as a platform for social debate. Less than 24 hours after saying she was leaving Twitter, Roseanne Barr was back on the platform, attacking cast members of her former show whom she accused of stabbing her in the back. Barr’s most pointed charge came toward actor Michael Fishman, who played her son D.J. Conner in the ABC reboot.
She then responded simply “Wow! unreal” to Gilbert’s statement from Tuesday calling Barr’s tweet “abhorrent.” Barr tweeted or retweeted over 70 messages after her initial apology 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.” She sent dozens more direct replies to Twitter users.
Many of the tweets defended Barr’s comments, saying she was not racist and attempting to point out the perceived hypocrisy on Disney’s part. Barr also claimed she did not know Jarrett was black, first saying she believed she was Saudi, then Jewish and Persian and finally that she believed Jarrett was white.
She blamed the initial tweet about Jarrett on the sleep medication Ambien, although she later deleted multiple tweets with references to the prescription sleep aid. The first of those tweets said, “It was 2 in the morning and I was ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far & do not want it defended.”
Sanofi U.S., the biopharmaceutical company that makes Ambien, responded to Barr’s tweet Wednesday morning, condemning her excuse that she was “ambien tweeting.”
“People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication,” the company said in a tweet.
As for Barr, she finally signed off at 3 a.m., tweeting, “thanks for all your kind comments, everyone! Love u all goodnight.”
She then sent two more retweets, including a defense from InfoWars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson.
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