Roseanne Barr

In the early morning hours of May 29, 2018, at 2:45 a.m., Barr posted a tweet directed at Valerie Jarrett, a Black woman and former senior advisor to former President Barack Obama. The tweet read, “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj.” 

Reportedly, the tweet was a comment in a thread about Jarrett’s possible involvement in “Spygate,” a since-debunked conspiracy theory popularized by then-President Donald Trump that alleged the Obama administration had placed a spy within Trump’s campaign. The tweet has since been deleted.

At about 9 a.m. the same morning, Barr tweeted, “ISLAM is not a RACE, lefties. Islam includes EVERY RACE of people.”

A user commented, “Now try to explain away the ‘planet of the apes’ comment towards Valerie Jarrett. // I’ll wait.”, and posted a screenshot of Barr’s tweet from earlier that morning.

News outlets including ABC, Huffpost, and The New York Times, as well as associated media users, labeled the tweet—and Barr—as racist for the comparison of Jarrett, a Black woman, to an ape. 

On Twitter, users quickly expressed disdain for Barr’s tweet. 

Journalist Jeff Yang compared Barr’s tweet about Jarrett to a similar tweet she had posted about Susan Rice in 2013. Yang wrote, “Roseanne Barr, 2018: I apologize for comparing Valerie Jarrett, a black woman, to an ape. I should have known better...// Roseanne Barr, 2013: I apologize for comparing Susan Rice, a black woman, to an ape. I should have known be”

Shortly after Barr’s tweet about Jarrett, Wanda Sykes posted that she “would not be returning” to “Roseanne.” Sykes was a writer and producer for the show. 

Later that day Barr tweeted an apology: “I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. 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.” The tweet was quickly deleted.

[Tweet shown at 3:33 minutes]

Around midday May 29, just hours after Barr posted the controversial tweet, ABC announced that it would be canceling the rebooted sitcom series, “Roseanne.” 

Channing Dungey, president of ABC Entertainment, said in a statement, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”

Around the time that ABC announced they would be canceling “Roseanne,” members of the cast tweeted reactions and statements about Barr’s tweet. 

Sara Gilbert wrote, “Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett...are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew...I am disappointed in her actions, to say the least.”

Emma Kenney wrote, “I am hurt, embarrassed, and disappointed. The racist and distasteful comments from Roseanne are inexcusable.”

Several other celebrities also tweeted their responses. Director Ava Duvernay posted a photo of Channing Dungey and wrote, “For the record, this is Channing Dungey. Sitting on top of your world like a Queen in full judgment of your garbage and taking it out. #Roseanne”

Former US Representative John Lewis thanked ABC, writing, “You did the right thing. There is not any room in our society for racism or bigotry.”

Director and writer Aisha Taylor posted a thread regarding the situation saying, “Kudos to @ABCNetwork for their quick, decisive actions. We live in a country where you can express yourself freely, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for hateful speech and actions...We as a country can and will be better.”

Rita Moreno, a prolific actress known for her roles in classic films like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “West Side Story,” wrote, “@therealroseanne, you break my heart -- You are a sorry excuse for a human being. How odd that you, as a comedienne, have forgotten then meaning of a "joke" and a personal comment. Your meanness is staggering and will earn you a ticket to a sad, lonely and sorry life.”

An hour after ABC canceled “Roseanne” on May 29, ICM Partners, the talent agency that represented Barr, dropped her as a client.

A few minutes after ABC announced the cancellation, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, tweeted Dungey’s statement and appended his own, saying, “There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.”

Tom Arnold, Barr’s former husband and colleague on “Roseanne,” wrote in response, “Ton of respect for Bob Iger. Tough decision with financial consequences for his company but right for America...”

Later on the evening of May 29, MSNBC held a special on “Everyday Racism in America.” The special held Jarrett as a speaker, as well as Rev. Al Sharpton and Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor and president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The special opened with host Joy Reid giving Jarrett a chance to respond to Barr’s tweet from earlier that morning. Jarrett said that she hoped it could be turned into a “teaching moment.” She continued, “I’m fine … I’m worried about all the people out there who don’t have a circle of friends and followers who come right to their defense.”

In response to ABC’s decision to cancel the show, Jarrett said, “I appreciate that they did that so swiftly.” She also said that Bob Iger personally called her to apologize for Barr’s tweet about her, saying Disney and ABC had “zero tolerance for that sort of racist, bigoted comment.”

When asked if he felt ABC made the right decision, Sharpton replied, “I think it’s important the statement they made. Because I think what we’re dealing with is those that are still trying to turn us back into a day where that is considered normal; and I think we can’t get away from the fact that if it starts raining, you look for clouds. The clouds that have been put over this country to try and bring us back to where this is normal. To take a well-educated, beautiful woman like Valerie Jarrett—which they did similar to Michelle Obama and President Obama—and equate them with monkeys is not acceptable. And we cannot tolerate when we have a president [Trump] who started his political career on birtherism and saying that ‘[Obama]’s not one of us,’ when he’s done everything he could and dog-whistling on the issue of race—people like Roseanne feel that they’re empowered. Well, they got the memo today that they’re not empowered.”

Ifill was given the opportunity to respond as well, saying,  “When you think about the kind of comment that Roseanne Barr made today, something that feeds into a very old stereotype that did not begin with her, that did not begin with Donald Trump that dehumanizes Black people. When you dehumanize people, you can do anything to them. You can lock them away for years on minor offenses and think that their lives have no value. You can punish Black girls in a way that you cannot punish white girls ...You can do all of these things because you don’t think that they are exactly human … It begins with a message that we have been sent about who we are. And to the extent that we are othered in this way, to the extent that we are regarded as something less than human … it puts people in danger.”

Barr also claimed to have written a longer apology later in the evening after the show’s cancellation, saying, “I deeply regret my comments from late last night on Twitter … I am sorry for making a thoughtless joke that does not reflect my values—I love all people and am very sorry … I also sincerely apologize to the audience that has embraced my work for decades. I apologize from the bottom of my heart and hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.”

The apology was posted by Kate Arthur, Editor at Variety, and Barr replied, “thanks, Kate! This was written by me. I have nothing more to say.”

The night of the original tweet, May 29, after she had publicly apologized and “Roseanne” had been canceled, Barr tweeted again saying, “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.”

The tweet has since been deleted.

Twitter users responded over the next few days with memes and photos satirically linking Ambien as the cause for racist events like the 2017 University of Virginia white nationalist march and racist extremist groups like the KKK.

The day after Barr’s tweet about Jarrett and subsequent apology, Barr tweeted, “I’m not a racist, I never was & I never will be ...”

Several Twitter users commented in opposition of her post. One user responded with a screenshot of a tweet from another user which read, “Fun fact: “racist” is not a self-imposed title. You do not get to decide if you are racist or not racist. Much like “annoying”—it’s a description of other peoples’ experience of you, not your image of yourself.”

Barr responded, “i find you racist.”

Also on May 30, then-President Trump tweeted about Iger in response to the condemnation of Barr’s tweet. Trump wrote, “Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?” 

[Tweet no longer available due to suspension of Trump’s account.]

On May 30, Sanofi, the pharmaceutical company that produces Ambien, tweeted in response to Barr’s claims that Ambien contributed to her writing the tweet directed towards Jarrett.

The tweet reads, “People of all races, religions, and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”

On July 20, 2018, Barr posted two videos consecutively on her Youtube channel. 

The first was a clip of Barr, seemingly agitated and yelling at someone off-screen. As the off-screen man is speaking to her, Barr suddenly yells out, “I’m trying to talk about Iran! I’m trying to talk about Valerie Jarrett running the Iran deal!” A few seconds later she screams out, “I thought the bitch was white! Godammit! I thought the bitch was white! Fuck!” 

The second video posted was Barr’s official statement regarding the original tweet, nearly two months later. Barr said in the statement that she would be speaking, “without the filter of the biased media,” and continued, “This has been my statement since the beginning and it will continue being my statement forever, because it is the truth.” 

She repeated what she had said in the previous video that she “thought Valerie Jarrett was white” and that she would be willing to do interviews to explain this. “Instead what happened,” she stated, “about 40 mins after, my show was canceled before even one advertiser pulled out and I was labeled a racist. Why you ask? Well, the answer’s simple. It’s because I voted for Donald Trump. And that is not allowed in Hollywood.”

Barr was interviewed by VICE News Tonight on HBO on October 16, 2018—over five months since the original tweet. The interview featured Barr in her home, talking about the fallout over the controversy, as she also gives a tour of her home and awards. 

Regarding the continuation of “Roseanne” as “The Connors,” Barr said, “I don’t keep in touch with anyone on the show. I’ve been removed from the process of my life’s work. It’s like the worst thing that they could have possibly done to me was to fire me from my own show and let other people write my own story.”

She talked about her mental illness in relation to the Jarrett tweet, saying, “Everybody knows that I’ve struggled with mental health issues. And I was struggling at that time as well. I was impaired, and stupid, and mistaken, and wrong. And for that, I apologized.”