Roseanne Barr’s insensitive tweet about Valerie Jarrett led to the cancellation of her titular show, ‘Roseanne,’ but she’s now pointing fingers at Sara Gilbert, saying that her on-screen daughter ‘destroyed’ the show.
It was Roseanne Barr’s tweet that made ABC pull the plug on the Roseanne revival in May 2018, but the sitcom star continues to deflect the blame. This time, she took aim at Sara Gilbert, 44, who played Roseanne’s on-screen daughter, Darlene Conner, throughout the show’s original run from 1988 to 1997, as well as on the revival in 2018. Sara reprised the role for the spin-off show, The Conners, which is awaiting a renewal for Season 2. “She destroyed the show and my life with that tweet,” Roseanne told The Washington Post in a tell-all interview published on March 21, adding, “She will never get enough until she consumes my liver with a fine Chianti.” HollywoodLife has reached out to Sara’s rep for comment.
As a refresher, it was Roseanne who suggested that Valerie Jarrett, the former adviser to President Barack Obama, would be the “baby” of the “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes” in a since-deleted tweet on May 29, 2018. On the same day, Sara quickly condemned the remarks which many deemed to be racist. “Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show. I am disappointed in her actions to say the least,” the co-star tweeted, which prompted Roseanne to reply, “Wow! unreal.” However, the President of ABC Entertainment, Channing Dungey, also agreed with Sara in that Roseanne’s tweet was “abhorrent,” in addition to “repugnant” and “inconsistent” with the network’s values.
Roseanne has blamed another one of her TV children for throwing her “under the bus.” Those were the words the sitcom star used towards Michael Fishman in a tweet, who had issued a statement in which he slammed Roseanne’s jab at Obama’s former aide as “reprehensible” and “intolerable.” He had played Roseanne’s on-screen son, D.J. Conner, throughout the years as well. And Roseanne accused yet another castmate, Wanda Sykes, for making ABC drop the axe on the sitcom. Wanda took to Twitter to announce she wouldn’t be returning on set, so Roseanne posted, “Her tweet made ABC very nervous and they cancelled the show.”
But Roseanne hasn’t limited her accusations to her castmates. From Michelle Obama to the prescription drug for insomnia, Ambien, the comedian has cast her net wide to claim why Roseanne was ultimately cancelled. The actress has also claimed she “mistakenly thought [Valerie Jarrett] was white” in a tweet, denying the accusations of racism. Roseanne has tried to apologize before. “I said to God, ‘I am willing to accept whatever consequences this brings because I know I’ve done wrong. I’m going to accept what the consequences are,’ and I do, and I have,” Barr told her close friend, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, on his podcast in June 2018. “But they don’t ever stop. They don’t accept my apology, or explanation. And I’ve made myself a hate magnet. And as a Jew, it’s just horrible. It’s horrible.”