*Roseanne Barr revisited the racist 2018 tweet that sparked widespread outrage and led to the cancellation of her rebooted sitcom, “Roseanne.”
In a candid interview with Variety, the 72-year-old comedian insists the controversial post was not racist but a misunderstood commentary on fascism. Barr now attributes the tweet to divine intervention, stating, “The way I feel about it is that God told me to do what I did, and it was a nuclear bomb.”
She claims the post prompted over 2 million Americans to search for information about Valerie Jarrett and the Iran deal, aligning with her intended impact.
The tweet in question compared Jarrett, a former adviser to President Obama, to a character from “Planet of the Apes,” reading: “Muslim brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby = vj.”
Barr explained that she posted it after waking up from a combination of Ambien and alcohol, with her laptop open in bed. She described seeing an image juxtaposing Jarrett with actress Helena Bonham Carter in prosthetic makeup as Ari, a character from the 2001 “Planet of the Apes” film.
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“They looked like Xerox copies of each other, so I captioned it,” Barr recounted. She further argued that the film was about fascism, not race. “They were so racist that they thought my tweet said Black people look like monkeys when it was about ‘Planet of the Apes,'” she told Variety.
Despite initially issuing an apology, Barr now expresses regret for the post but maintains she was unfairly targeted for her conservative political views. The backlash was swift: ABC canceled the “Roseanne” reboot, which had debuted to strong ratings, and then-ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey called the tweet “abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger supported the decision, stating, “There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.”
Barr was removed from the show, which was rebranded as “The Conners. “Her character was killed off via an opioid overdose, and the spinoff ran for seven seasons, concluding in April 2025.
Unfazed by the controversy, Barr is now channeling her energy into a new comedy project alongside Allan Stephan.
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