Roseanne Barr has talked about how she lost “everything” after posting a tweet that led to the cancellation of her show.
Roseanne, the star’s popular sitcom, ran from 1988 to 1997 and was brought back in March 2018.
But just two months later, it was suddenly canceled after the 70-year-old posted a racist tweet about former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett in which she compared Jarrett to an ape.
Roseanne Barr said she thought Jarrett was white, but ABC canceled the show, calling the tweet “abhorrent, offensive, and against our values.”
Now, the actor, writer, and comedian is fighting back.
Roseanne Barr said:
They didn’t do it to anyone else in Hollywood, although they always throw in Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K.
Well, Louis C.K. did lose everything, but he committed an actual [offense]. And Dave Chappelle was protected by Netflix.
I’m the only person who’s lost everything, whose life’s work was stolen, stolen by people who I thought loved me.
And there was silence. There was no one in Hollywood really defending me publicly, except for [fellow comedian] Mo’nique, who is a brave, close, dear friend.
When asked if it changed her life in a terrible way, Barr said:
It was. I would die many times.
I guess you would call it the dark night of the soul. I felt like the devil himself was coming against me to try to tear me apart, to punish me for believing in God.
She continued:
And they denied me the right to apologize. Oh my God, they just hated me so badly. I had never known that they hated me like that.
They hate me because I have talent, because I have an opinion.
Even though Roseanne became their No. 1 show, they’d rather not have a No. 1 show.
Barr is now back to doing stand-up comedy, which is where she started out.
When asked if she felt betrayed by her former co-stars on a sitcom, she said:
I can’t know what they think or feel. I don’t know why they did what they did. I’m not like them. I realized that.
I can’t believe what they did, with all the pain that I went through to bring the show back. And it didn’t faze them to murder my character, either.
They s*** on my contribution to television and the show itself. But I forgive everybody.
I started thinking that God took me out of there to save me. And once I started thinking that way, I was, like, a lot better off.
She added:
I’ve survived. I’ve come out on the other side of it, finally. But it was a witch-burning. And it was terrifying