Roseanne Barr makes TV comeback eight years after controversial cancellation
Roseanne Barr is returning to comedy after she was fired by Disney in 2018 over a racist tweet targeting Valerie Jarrett, a former advisor to President Barack Obama.
At the time, ABC cancelled the hit revival of her sitcom Roseanne hours after Barr, now 73, posted the “abhorrent, repugnant” comment. Eight years later and Barr has just wrapped production on a comedy series called MeeMaw.
Roseanne Barr’s return to the entertainment industry won’t be without its controversy after she was banished for a 2018 racist tweet. Instagram/@officialroseannebarr
MeeMaw, an eight-episode comedy shot in Austin, Texas already features plenty of big names including Randy Quaid, Drea de Matteo, Omar Gooding and Doug Jones.
The show will feature appearances from Jon Lovitz, Tony Hinchcliffe and Kim Congdon.
“It’s every bit as revolutionary as The Roseanne Show, if not more, and my work has improved with time,” Barr told Page Six.
“I want everybody who disagrees in a family to sit in the same room and just laugh and go, ’Yeah, maybe I was an a--hole that time. Well, you were an a--hole this time. Oh, we’re all a--holes. Let’s get a beer.”
In MeeMaw, Barr plays the matriarch of a “mixed-race family of preppers in Texas” who is on a quest to “throw her granddaughter the most fantastic bat mitzvah Texas has ever seen.”
Barr’s project is sure to cause controversy after she was banished from the entertainment industry because of a 2018 tweet.
In the tweet Barr referred to former Michelle Obama aide Valerie Jarrett as the offspring of the “Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes”.
At the time, Barr apologised to Jarrett and deleted her Twitter (now X) account. Barr says she didn’t know then that Jarrett was African American.
The Roseanne reboot was cancelled after Barr’s tweet and a spin-off series The Conners was ordered without her involement. ABC
Despite her Roseanne revival being a ratings hit, finishing its first season in a number one slot, Disney quickly let go of Barr.
While the Roseanne reboot was scrapped ABC ordered a spin-off titled The Conners that premiered in October 2018.
Original co-stars John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, and Lecy Goranson returned for the new series, while Barr had no creative or financial involvement.
On the show, her character Roseanne Conner was written off as having died from an accidental opioid overdose.
The Conners aired on ABC and ran until 2025.
