Here's what John Goodman said in his first interview after Roseanne Barr controversy
Roseanne star John Goodman shared his thoughts on the axing of the sitcom he starred in. The star chose to tread carefully as he gave insight into his thoughts when reporters approached him.
The 66-year-old actor has managed to stay out of much of the drama surrounding Roseanne’s cancelation on May 29 following the show’s main star, 65-year-old Roseanne Barr, racist comment on Twitter.
The controversy started when Barr wrote a derogatory Tweet that likened former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett to Planet of the Apes and the Muslim Brotherhood. Read more on our Twitter account @amomama_usa
Within hours, the cast and crew of the show, which had been approved for a follow-up season, distanced themselves from Barr’s comment, with producer Wanda Sykes announcing she was not going to return to the show.
Goodman, on the other hand, stayed away from the spotlight amid the controversy, and he only commented about the situation when cornered by Entertainment Tonight one day after ABC decided to cancel the reboot.
ET approached the actor outside an auto repair shop in New Orleans where he was collecting his car that was being fixed. He was clearly reluctant to address the issue, but he was respectful towards the reporter and tried to answer nicely.
He claimed not to know much about the subject and added that he preferred not to comment about it in order to not make things worse with a troublesome opinion.
After that, the reporter told him about rumors of Goodman getting his own show following the cancelation, to what he simply answered by suggesting the reporter was better informed than him, declining to further comment on it.
Goodman assured he was well, all things considered, and insisted that he wasn’t very aware of the details of Barr’s comments and the backlash they caused, explaining that he had nothing to do with Twitter.
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‘I don't know anything about it. I don't read it,’ the Big Lebowski star said. As the actor walked to his car, he was asked about his thoughts of being left out of the competition for the Emmy’s, and he didn’t seem to give it much importance.
He shared that he’d been nominated eleven times already and had never won. His nominations were between 1988 and 2010.
Six of them were for his role on Roseanne. Goodman only took one Emmy in 2007 for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role on the series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
In 1993, the sitcom also earned the star five Golden Globe nominations, of which he won one.
The rumors about a spin-off series focusing on the rest of the characters from Roseanne, leaving Barr out of it, started to circulate as soon as news of the cancelation broke, and they turned out to be true.
Image source: Getty images/GlobalimagesUkraine
As Rolling Stone reported, on June 21 ABC revealed their plans to continue the show’s story in a spinoff series to be named The Conner's. The remaining members of the cast released a joint statement about their feelings regarding picking up the show without Barr.
‘We all came back last season because we wanted to tell stories about the challenges facing a working-class family today,’ read the statement.
‘We are so happy to have the opportunity to return with the cast and crew to continue to share those stories through love and laughter,’ they added.