Oddly enough, one of the biggest news stories this week was how a TV star was fired for making a racist tweet. In this case, Roseanne Barr, who had been out of the spotlight and relatively free of scandal since her original “Roseanne” TV show went off the air in 1997, only took two months after the show rebooted this year, to get in hot water—and lose her job.
Since coming back into the spotlight two months ago with the successful relaunch of “Roseanne,” she courted controversy with comments concerning immigration, the Parkland school shooting, and various racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
The straw that broke the camel’s back, or at least forced the hand of ABC and its parent company, Disney, was a tweet about Valerie Jarret, an advisor to President Barack Obama.The tweet, since deleted, read: “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”
She later apologized, but ABC had enough. ABC President Channing Dungey, herself African-American, said in a statement, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
In addition, ICM Partners, Barr’s talent representatives, parted ways.
Not long after, perhaps in an attempt to back-pedal or merely rationalize, she blamed her use of sleep medication Ambien, manufactured and marketed by France drug company Sanofi. She tweeted, “guys I did something unforgiveable so do not defend me. 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—it was egregious indefensible. I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but…don’t defend it please.”
Sanofi was quick to respond on their own Twitter account, stating: “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.”
It’s not as if Roseanne Barr wasn’t controversial during the first run of the show or even afterwards. In 1990, she performed a mock Star-Spangled Banner performance and grabbed her crotch at the end, which then-President George HW Bush called “disgraceful.”
Barr, who herself is Jewish, in 2009 did a photoshoot for the satirical Jewish magazine Heebwhere she dressed up like Adolph Hitler, shown pulling burned people cookies out of an oven.
And those are just to name two prominent scandals over the last almost 30 years.
Several of Barr’s co-stars were also quick to criticize Barr as she was ushered out the door, even though Barr took a few hours before lashing back. One was Sara Gilbert, who was an executive producer on the show instrumental in bringing the reboot back on the air. She tweeted, “Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and 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.”
There is speculation that Gilbert’s “and so much more” hints that there may have been other contributing factors to the cancellation of the show, which would be consistent with stories of turmoil behind the scenes on the show’s first run.
Many observers were waiting for President Trump to voice an opinion on the Barr scandal, because she has been an outspoken supporter of his policies and statements. One of her pet topics were accusations that billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros was a Nazi. In one well-known Twitter tirade, Barr claimed that Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had married a nephew of Soros. In part of the Twitter exchange between the two women, Barr tweeted, “By the way, George Soros a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth-were you aware of that?”
President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted the message.
President Trump, on his part, recently did wade into the controversy, apparently ubnable to resist, tweeting, “Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?”
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