Five years after her “cancelation,” Roseanne Barr still feels singled out … and she’s still upset about it.
“I’ve survived. I’ve come out on the other side of it, finally. But it was a witch-burning,” she told The Los Angeles Times. “And it was terrifying. It was.”
Back in 2018, the comedian was on top of the world, as the “Roseanne” reboot was having wild success on ABC. Then, in the middle of the night, Roseanne typed out the tweet that would have lasting repercussions. In the tweet, she compared White House advisor Valerie Jarrett to the “Planet of the Apes” movies. Amid fierce backlash, Roseanne claimed she didn’t know Valerie was Black and said she was on Ambien at the time, therefore not thinking clearly.
In the immediate aftermath, ABC fired her, killed off her character and rebranded “Roseanne” as “The Conners,” which still airs.
“Oh my God, they just hated me so badly. I had never known that they hated me like that,” she said of ABC. “They hate me because I have talent, because I have an opinion. Even though ‘Roseanne’ became their number one show, they’d rather not have a number one show.”
She says the network denied her the chance to apologize.
“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,” she told the Times. “There was no one in Hollywood really defending me publicly, except for Mo’nique, who is a brave, close, dear friend.”
Roseanne said fellow comedians Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K weren’t given the same harsh treatment she received.
“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],” she said.
In 2017, Louis admitted to performing sexual acts in front of female colleagues. Dave caught backlash for transphobic jokes made in a Netflix special. Both men have won Grammys since their incidents.
Amid the fallout of her ousting, Roseanne has lost contact with many of her former sitcom costars.
“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,” she shared.
Although the comedy legend sounds bitter, she says she’s not.
“I forgive everybody,” she says. “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.”
On Feb. 13, Rosanne will return to TV with a new comedy special for Fox Nation. In a preview of the special, she asks the crowd, “Has anyone else here been fired recently?”