Roseanne blames sleeping pills for racist comments, later deletes tweet
Star of scrapped sitcom roundly mocked on Twitter for claiming Ambien set her off
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In a tweet she later deleted, Roseanne Barr on Wednesday blamed taking the sleeping pill Ambien for the racist tweet she wrote which led to the cancellation of her eponymous sitcom.
“I did something unforgivable so do not defend me,” Barr wrote. “It was 2 in the morning and I was ambien tweeting-it was memorial day too-i went 2 far & do not want it defended-it was egregious Indefensible. I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but…don’t defend it please.”
The television star was referring to the tweet she sent comparing Valerie Jarrett, former aide to President Barack Obama, to a monkey, stating: “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj,”
After a backlash on Twitter, Barr offered an apology.
“I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans,” she tweeted. “I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me – my joke was in bad taste.”
Barr claimed that, not for the first time, she was taking a break from Twitter: “I apologize. I am now leaving Twitter,” she said. However, it wasn’t long before she logged back onto the social networking site and retweeted support from fans as well as further racist comments and conspiracy theories.
The mea culpa was not enough for ABC, however, which issued a statement from its entertainment president Channing Dungey saying it was axing the hit show over Barr’s “abhorrent, repugnant” tweet, which was “inconsistent with our values.”
The outcry also came from those involved with the show, with comedian Wanda Sykes who had worked as a consulting producer on the show saying that she would not return to the sitcom, and actress Sara Gilbert who plays Roseanne’s daughter tweeting that she was “disappointed” by Barr’s actions.
Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show. I am disappointed in her actions to say the least.
— sara gilbert (@THEsaragilbert) May 29, 2018
Barr’s claim that she sent the tweet after taking a sleeping pill, seemingly blaming the drug for her words, led to the popular sedative trending on Twitter, with users mocking her for the claim.
I checked. And Ambien does NOT make you racist. ….. Nice try, though, @therealroseanne. #Roseanne
— Van Jones (@VanJones68) May 30, 2018
(Chanting)
WE! JUST! TOOK! AMBIEN! pic.twitter.com/esu3IMj8gu— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) May 30, 2018
Barr also got into an online spat with Chelsea Clinton over the holiday weekend, which devolved into Barr repeating a falsehood that the liberal Hungarian-Jewish billionaire George Soros was a Nazi collaborator. She also claimed Clinton was married to a nephew of George Soros (she is not).
US President Donald Trump, who reveled in the success of “Roseanne” after Barr’s character in the show came out as a supporter of his presidency, made no mention of the controversy in a campaign-style rally in Tennessee on Tuesday evening.
“We have a lot bigger things going on in the country right now, certainly, that the president is spending his time on,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Barr has a history of diving into political conspiracy theories on Twitter. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, retweeted two of Barr’s statements about Soros, although not the remark about Jarrett.
The Times of Israel Community.