Roseanne Barr openly criticized the ‘double standard’ in ABC’s decision to bring back Jimmy Kimmel, seven years following her removal from her well-loved sitcom.
The program Jimmy Kimmel Live! faced an indefinite suspension last Wednesday when Kimmel made remarks implying that Charlie Kirk’s murderer might be affiliated with the ‘MAGA gang.’ This led the FCC chairman to threaten an investigation into the show.
Investigations revealed that the accused shooter, Tyler Robinson, apparently held left-leaning political views and reportedly messaged his live-in partner, Lance Twiggs, also known as Luna, claiming he targeted the MAGA influencer due to his ‘hatred.’ Twiggs is currently assisting the police.
The suspension of Kimmel’s show triggered a strong reaction from Hollywood, leading ABC to reverse their decision and announce on Monday that the show would resume on Tuesday.
Conversely, Barr faced expulsion from her Roseanne reboot in 2018 after making a tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, a black woman, suggesting resemblance to a union between the ‘Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes.’
At 72, Barr faced widespread condemnation within the entertainment sphere, including from her own fellow actors, and remains largely shunned in Hollywood — a situation she remarked was in stark contrast to Kimmel’s treatment, during her conversation with News Nation.
Roseanne Barr fiercely denounced the ‘double standard’ of ABC reinstating Jimmy Kimmel , seven years after the network fired her from her iconic sitcom
‘I got my whole life ruined, no forgiveness and all of my work stolen and called a racist for time and eternity, for racially misgendering someone. It just shows how they think. It’s a double standard,’ said Barr, a staunch Trump supporter.
‘I’ve been erased from history, from the history of feminism, which that cracks me up. I’m never mentioned in anything about women who are pioneers in media. I’m never mentioned in anything anymore,’ she observed.
People whom she helped break into showbiz now avoid discussing her, she said, ‘especially when they talk about censorship, which that cracks me up.’
Back in 2018, as a furious race row erupted over Barr’s joke about Valerie Jarrett, she deleted the tweet and blamed the post on Ambien.
She subsequently insisted she had no idea that the olive-skinned Jarrett was black, even screaming at one interviewer: ‘I thought the b**** was white!’
ABC chief Channing Dungey – who has gone on to work with the Obamas – jettisoned Barr from the network in response to the tweet, which drew vehement public condemnations from her co-stars like Sara Gilbert and Emma Kenney.
Kimmel himself used his monologue to blast Barr’s tweet as ‘indefensible,’ saying it did not ‘sit well with ABC management or anyone with a brain.’
In order for her show to be allowed to continue and her colleagues to keep their jobs, Barr was prevailed upon to give up her rights to the royalties, including those she would have earned from the original series.
Kimmel’s suspension was met with an explosive outcry from Hollywood, and ABC backtracked, announcing this Monday that his show was coming back Tuesday
Barr and John Goodman are pictured on the 2018 reboot of Roseanne, which was rebranded The Conners after her firing and staggered on for seven seasons before ending this April
The original Roseanne series ran nine seasons from 1988 to 1997 and has been widely hailed as one of the finest sitcoms ever created; the cast are pictured in 1989
The first version of Roseanne lasted nine seasons from 1988 to 1997, and has been widely hailed as one of the finest sitcoms ever created.
Barr’s character was killed off of the reboot, which was then rebranded The Conners and staggered on for seven seasons before airing its finale this April.
She has since claimed she ‘was told’ that Dungey fired her at the behest of Michelle Obama, in an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine.
Now Barr, whose revival of Roseanne was the highest-rated show on ABC before she was axed, has hit out at the network’s softer punishment of other talent.
She pointed to the temporary suspension of not only Kimmel but also Whoopi Goldberg, who spent two weeks off The View in 2022 for saying the Holocaust was not about ‘race’ because Nazis and Jews were ‘two white groups of people.’
Barr claimed ABC would protect ‘their lowest rated shows for their shareholders and destroy their highest rated shows for their shareholders.’
She also slammed Kimmel for intimating she was racist despite having done blackface himself on his old Comedy Central series The Man Show, for which he apologized in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter riots.
Although ABC brought Jimmy Kimmel Live! back on the air Tuesday, 70 of the network’s local affiliates did not broadcast the program.
Barr has now praised Nexstar for refusing to carry this Tuesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! show on the 32 ABC affiliates it owns – a decision it announced earlier that day, following in the footsteps of fellow broadcaster Sinclair.
‘I just love independent media,’ said the sitcom icon, who now hosts The Roseanne Barr Podcast. ‘They’ve broken away from the big, you know, how can I say this? They decentralized information, and that’s what America wants and needs.’
A new documentary called Roseanne Is America came out this summer, revealing the final indignity ABC subjected her to after she was thrown off the Roseanne reboot.
At some point during the run of The Connors, the network ‘called me and asked me if I would like to come back as a guest star. You’re coming back as a ghost.’
The famously mercurial comedienne erupted: ‘You’re asking me to come back to the show that you f***ing stole from me and killed my a**, and now you want me to show up because you got s*** f***ing ratings and play a ghost?’
Incensed by the request, the She-Devil star turned down the network by informing them: ‘I’m gonna be bowling that f***ing week.’
