Roseanne Barr recently opened up about feeling betrayed by former costar Sara Gilbert, who played her daughter on her eponymous sitcom.
In an interview with Megyn Kelly about her SiriusXM Showthe 70-year-old actress unleashed, saying 48-year-old Gilbert had “stabbed” her in the back and “twisted it repeatedly.”
“It was her tweet that canceled the show,” Barr explained of Gilbert, referring to the cancellation of the Roseanne reboot in 2018.
And then she tweeted, “It’s sad when a cast member…” — something about being racist, blah, blah. And I was floored. I was just floored,” she continued.
“And you know, but eventually she owns my work and Tom Werner becomes her partner in owning my work.”
Speaking out: Roseanne Barr recently opened up about feeling betrayed by former costar Sara Gilbert, who played her daughter on her eponymous sitcom
Sara, who was an executive producer on the Roseanne revival and had played Darlene Conner throughout the series, called Barr’s tweets “abhorrent.”
Roseanne initially aired from 1988 to 1997, before a March 2018 revival looking at how the working-class Conner family fared during the Trump era.
Then ABC canceled the new iteration in May 2018, hours after the comedian posted a racist tweet about a former adviser to President Obama.
The then 65-year-old actress was widely condemned after she tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, who is African American and advised Barack and Michelle Obama, looked like the “Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby.”
Barr initially defended himself against accusations of racism by tweeting that “Islam is not a race.”
But she later tweeted to Jarrett that she was sorry “for making a bad joke” about her politics and her looks and said she was leaving Twitter.
“I’m really sorry I made a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me, my joke was in bad taste,” she wrote.
Despite the apology, critics called on ABC to cancel her show, which became the third highest-rated American show after Sunday Night Football and This Is Us.
Jarrett responded to Roseanne’s comments during a town hall on MSNBC called “Everyday Racism in America,” saying ABC made the right decision by canceling the reboot.
Bad blood: “It was her tweet that canceled the show,” Barr explained of Gilbert, referring to the cancellation of the 2018 Roseanne reboot
Barr said she felt particularly let down by Gilbert, revealing that her TV daughter “begged me to come back and said, ‘I’ve got your back.’ This time I won’t let anyone to you. . I’m going to protect you. I know you have mental health issues, but I’ll be there. I’ll get in the way.”
But after the tasteless and offensive tweet, Barr’s character was killed off, sending what Roseanne interpreted as a chilling message.
The old comedienne said, “They just tried to kill me and I felt like they killed my character and my character.”
She added: “But I thought they were sending a message over the air because they knew I had mental health issues.
“I thought they wanted me to kill myself. And all my friends too. They said, “They’re trying to force you to commit suicide.”‘
After Roseanne’s cancellation, a spin-off called The Conners premiered.
It has served the network well and was recently renewed for a sixth season.
In 2019, Barr said Gilbert “destroyed the show and my life with that tweet.”
How it started: Roseanne initially aired from 1988 to 1997; photo from January 1989
Original cast: Roseanne, John Goodman, Sara, Lecy Goranson, Laurie Metcalf and Michael Fishman pictured in 1989
Earlier this year, during a stand-up set, Roseanne spoke about the moment she heard her TV show was cancelled.
She returned to the spotlight with a new show – a comedy special on Fox Nation entitled Roseanne Barr: Cancel This!
The veteran comic admitted she was “pissed off” when she found out the show was being cut, but said she decided “not to let the bastards win.”
Elsewhere in the special, Barr joked about preoccupations with pronouns, gender identity, and generational differences.