Roseanne Barr Apologizes For Racist Tweet About Valerie Jarrett, ABC Cancels Her Series
Roseanne Barr nowadays is frequently more famous for stirring up controversy on Twitter than she is for creating television, and her latest social media incident has just gone viral.
The titular star and creator of the rebooted Roseanne tweeted (in a since-deleted post), “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” referring to Valerie Jarrett, who served as the senior adviser to President Barack Obama and is African-American. This was in a Twitter thread about an article (that does not mention Jarrett) that claims that the Obama-run CIA spied on the president of France.
Following the fallout, ABC has cancelled Roseanne, with ABC Entertainment chief Channing Dungey announcing, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
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During Obama’s time in office, rumors on right-wing blogs claimed that Jarrett was trying to make America “a more Islamic country,” which the fact-checking website Snopes has demonstrated to be false.
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After being called out for racism, Barr eventually apologized to Jarrett and “all Americans” for a joke made “in bad taste,” while also declaring that she was “now leaving Twitter.”
https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/1001471669641216005
https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/1001470384556752898
Barr’s account currently remains active, so it is not clear if she meant that she was deleting her account or just taking a temporary break.
This was not the only conspiracy-minded idea that Barr recently tweeted, as she also sought to connect former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton and billionaire liberal benefactor George Soros, as she claimed that Clinton was married to one of Soros’ nephews.
https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/1001310680111243269
Clinton then responded herself to clear up the situation, which prompted another apology from Barr, along with further conspiracy-peddling:
The claims that Clinton married a nephew of George Soros and that Soros was a Nazi collaborator have also both been debunked by Snopes.
In response to the comments, some Twitter users had been calling on ABC to cancel Roseanne. Wanda Sykes, who worked as a consulting producer on the first rebooted season, announced that she would not be returning to the show.
Sara Gilbert, who played Roseanne’s daughter Darlene on the original and the reboot, also tweeted about her disappointment:
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