Roseanne Barr: “They hate me because I have talent, because I have an opinion.”
Roseanne Barr is addressing her Hollywood cancellation ahead of her new standup special: “They hate me because I have talent, because I have an opinion.” https://t.co/eXV6uRxv1I
- VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) February 12, 2023
Five years ago Barr got fired from the revival of her sitcom, Roseanne, after posting a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a senior aide to President Barack Obama. Now she's back with a stand-up special, Roseanne Barr: Cancel This!, and a documentary about her, Who Is Roseanne Barr?, on Fox Nation.
During an interview she said her ouster from Hollywood “was a witch-burning,” and that ABC “denied me the right to apologize” for her tweet.
"Oh, my God, they just hated me so badly. I had never known that they hated me like that,” she said. “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.”
She claimed that during a call with top network brass, “I told them I thought [Jarrett] was white. I said I would go on my show and explain it. They wouldn’t let me. They decided I was a liar in my apology.”
“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,” Barr said of her castmates and collaborators. “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 also says no one was shunned like her in Hollywood, though she says: “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.”
She says Mo'Nique was the only one who stood by her and defended her publicly. Everyone else stayed quiet. She also says she has a diverse audience. “I have a large African American and people of color fan base.”
[the tweet in question]
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