Making amends the best way she knows how. Roseanne Barr reveals she “asked for nothing” when it came to authorizing a Roseanne spinoff after her controversial tweet in May resulted in the original reboot being canceled.
“I was … you know, very upset about hurting things that I care about and hurting people that I care about, specifically the little girl who played my granddaughter on the Roseanne show. She’s African American, her name’s Jayden [Rey] and she loved me and I loved her. And I did not want her … to not have a job because she’s great and I did not want her to think that, you know, badly of Jewish people, me specifically,” Barr, 65, told Rabbi Shmuley during a podcast on Wednesday, June 27. “So you know, I didn’t ask to be paid off … I asked for nothing. And I just stepped away for that because you know, that is penance. You know, I put a lot of thought into it.”
Barr — who was a co-creator of the characters on the original ‘80s series — faced major backlash in May after she tweeted a racist statement about White House aide Valerie Jarrett. The tweet, in which she said that Jarrett looked like a combination of “Muslim Brotherhood + Planet of the Apes,” resulted in the cancellation of the highly-successful reboot and prompted her colleagues, including Sara Gilbert, Wanda Sykes and Emma Kenney to speak out against her. Barr later apologized, blaming it on “Ambien tweeting.”
As previously reported, ABC announced on June 21 that the network had picked up a spinoff of Roseanne with a working title called The Conners starring returning cast members John Goodman (Dan), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Gilbert (Darlene), Lecy Goranson (Becky) and Michael Fishman (D.J.) In a statement to Us Weekly, Barr said of the new series, “I regret the circumstances that have caused me to be removed from Roseanne. I agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved.”
During Rabbi’s Shmuley’s podcast, Barr remarked that “the best time” of her life was when, after ending her talk show — The Roseanne Show, which aired between 1998 and 2000 — she decided to followed the Torah. “After my talk show was done, I decided to try to live my beliefs for 20 years and that’s a whole other story, but that’s when I got very, very into, you know, I did what I loved best and so I just lived Torah everyday and it was so exciting.”
Barr also revealed that she has Native American “godchildren,” telling Shmuley, “It came to my attention that there was this woman who’s a little younger than me on Rosebud Reservation … she was raising 11 of her own grandchildren in a one room, um, not a good, I don’t know, you know, I don’t want to be insulting, but it was kind of a not-kept, you know, not the best place to live with 11 children in one room with one bathroom. And uh, I just … you know, sometimes when you become aware of how real people in America are living and you have privilege, well, you know, you have to do something to raise them, you know … you can’t just sit in your privilege, you have to act. So I became very uh, emotionally involved with her and her grandchildren.”
The Conners is set to air on ABC Tuesdays this fall.
