Roseanne Barr Releases Statement on Racism Case
Disgraced actress Roseanne Barr has issued a tearful apology in the wake of the scandal following her racist tweet regarding Valerie Jarrett, an official in the Obama administration. Speaking in a podcast to her long term friend, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Barr stated “I am willing to accept whatever consequences this brings because I know I have done wrong”. This is the latest in a list of humiliating events for the star after she posted her distasteful tweet on May 29th.
Barr insisted that she was under the influence of the sleeping drug Ambien when she late-night tweeted that “Muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes had a baby = vj”. The former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett is black and was born in Iran. Barr was quick to apologise and delete the tweet as she was deluged with criticism from Twitter users.
Things went from bad to worse for the actress though. Within a few short hours of her initial apology, ABC announced that they were cancelling the Roseanne show, stating that “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show”. It wasn’t long before her co-stars began tweeting their reactions to the cancellation of their show. Emma Kenney, who played Barr’s grand-daughter on the sitcom, tweeted that she was “hurt, embarrassed and disappointed. The racist and distasteful comments from Roseanne are inexcusable”.
Barr’s attempt to blame her tweets on Ambien also backfired when Sanofi, the pharmaceutical company who manufacture Ambien, released their own statement via Twitter, which included the line “While all pharmaceutical have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication”.
Roseanne has continued to post apologetic tweets in the weeks since her initial poorly-judged offering. In a devastating blow to the actress, ABC announced on June 21st that they had ordered a spin-off series, The Conners, which will air in autumn 2018 for 10 episodes, it will not feature Barr and she will not have any creative input or receive financial compensation for the new series. Barr has said that she “agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved”.
The future looks uncertain for the iconic actress and fans of her eponymous show are now left to speculate how the new spin-off will deal with her absence and whether her character would be killed off.