Roseanne Barr reveals another reason why she believes ABC fired her

Jan 15, 2019

05:12 A.M.

The star of the American television sitcom Roseanne, who was fired from the show, has been speculating on reasons why the network made such a decision, the latest being her religion.

Roseanne Barr, was in May last year, fired by the ABC network. This came hours after the actress sent out a tweet about an adviser in the Obama administration, Valerie Jarrett.

The tweet read,

‘Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby=vj.’

This incident also led to the canceling of the series shortly after the ABC network had cleared the show for a new season.

The network revealed the reason for its decision was that the tweet was ‘abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.’

In what was certainly unsettling news to her, she speculated about the reason for her ouster. At first, she blamed her use of Ambien, a drug often used in the treatment of insomnia, and her support of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

However, in a phone interview granted from her home in Hawaii last Thursday to Jerusalem Post, she posited that it was because she was Jewish. ‘I feel that what happened to me, a large part of it is anti-Semitism,’ she said in the interview.

Barr also emphasized that the comment was not racial, which was how it was perceived, but political. She went on to complain about how the network did not give her a chance to explain the tweet, which she said was a commentary on Iran.

She also found it curious that the network’s decision was very hasty and unprecedented, as other artists who have found themselves in similar shoes in the past were not treated in the same manner.

Barr intends to travel to Israel by the end of January, where she will be discussing her termination from the show, ties to Israel, and her experiences with anti-Semitism. She will be accompanied by her friend and mentor Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has been supporting and defending her through the whole incident.

The cancellation of Roseanne led to the spinoff "The Conners." The new series features all the other cast members but Barr. The first episode of the series revealed that Barr’s character died of an opioid overdose. While other characters are trudging on after Barr’s absence, John Goodman, who played Barr’s husband, said she is missed on the show.

‘It was really odd, we used to have a lot of fun on the show, and I really missed her this year,’ he said while speaking to Seth Meyers.

Roseanne originally ran from 1988 to 1997. The show was then rebooted in 2017 and ran until it was canceled in 2018.