Roseanne Barr cited her support for President Trump with causing ABC to cancel her latest sitcom, adding in an interview released Wednesday that she is in contact with Mr. Trump.
Ms. Barr claimed on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast that a rebooted version of her sitcom “Roseanne” was canceled by ABC last year because of her public support of Mr. Trump.
“It’s all because I said that I like Trump,” Ms. Barr said. “As soon as they heard that, a lot of cabals here in Hollywood, that’s all they needed to hear. It’s like, ’OK, she must be destroyed.’ And I did hear people say, ’Oh my God, I’m afraid she’s going to try to humanize Trump.’ At the network they said that. And it’s like, what, you mean Trump voters? Is that who you’re afraid is going to get humanized?
“It’s such an elitist, out of touch view of humans,” the comedian continued. “It’s already offended me. It always offended me that they didn’t like their audience, and I liked the audience because I thought I’m from there and they’re familiar to me. And I vowed to myself: I’m not going to disrespect the audience. And I never did. And I never did sell out, neither.”
Asked on the podcast if she is in contact with the president, Ms. Barr responded, “Yeah, a little.” She added that it is “[expletive] exciting,” calling Mr. Trump “like a [expletive] Mick Jagger” and “bigger than the pope.”
Ms. Barr, 66, won both an Emmy and Golden Globe, among other accolades, for “Roseanne” when the sitcom originally aired on ABC between 1988 through 1997. She briefly starred in a revived version of the show aired by the network in 2018 before it was canceled roughly two months later amid an uproar brought on by a Twitter post widely condemned as racist.
ABC canceled the rebooted “Roseanne” after Ms. Barr tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, a former senior presidential adviser during the Obama administration, looked like as if “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.” Ms. Barr subsequently described it as a “bad joke about her politics and her looks” and apologized.
Messages requesting comment from ABC and the White House were not immediately answered.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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