Once a trailblazing icon of American television, Roseanne Barr says she was “erased from history” and treated like a pariah, all for what she calls a “double standard” in liberal Hollywood.
“I got my whole life ruined, no forgiveness, and all of my work stolen and called a racist for time and eternity, for racially misgendering someone,” said Barr, a vocal Trump supporter. “It just shows how they think. It’s a double standard.”
The firebrand comedian, whose 2018 reboot of Roseanne became ABC’s highest-rated program in years, was swiftly ousted after tweeting a controversial joke about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. Despite deleting the tweet and attributing the post to Ambien, Barr faced swift, coordinated backlash from Hollywood elites and ABC leadership.
“I thought the b**** was white!” she famously screamed during a follow-up interview, asserting she had no idea Jarrett was black. Yet ABC, led by then-president Channing Dungey—now working closely with the Obamas—cut ties with her immediately.
As Barr tells it, the fallout didn’t stop with her firing. It amounted to a cultural erasure.
“I’ve been erased from history, from the history of feminism—which that cracks me up. I’m never mentioned in anything about women who are pioneers in media. I’m never mentioned in anything anymore,” she said.
The rebooted show, The Conners, went on without her. Barr’s character was killed off, and she was forced to forfeit her rights and royalties—under pressure—to ensure her co-stars could keep their jobs. The spinoff staggered through seven seasons before concluding this past April.
Adding insult to injury, Barr recently revealed that ABC even invited her back—as a ghost. The pitch came during The Conners’ later run, when ratings were floundering.
“They called me and asked me if I would like to come back as a guest star. ‘You’re coming back as a ghost,’” she recounted in the new documentary Roseanne Is America. Her response was characteristically blunt: “You’re asking me to come back to the show that you fing stole from me and killed my a, and now you want me to show up because you got s** fing ratings and play a ghost? I’m gonna be bowling that fing week.”
Meanwhile, Barr sees a glaring disparity in how ABC handles other controversies—especially when liberal talent is involved.
She pointed to the case of The View‘s Whoopi Goldberg, who in 2022 was suspended for just two weeks after falsely claiming the Holocaust “wasn’t about race.” Goldberg’s remarks suggested Jews and Nazis were merely “two white groups of people.”
Barr also criticized late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who condemned her tweet as “indefensible” and took jabs at her during his monologues. Yet Kimmel himself had donned blackface during sketches on The Man Show, a fact that resurfaced during the BLM riots of 2020. Kimmel issued an apology then—but unlike Barr, faced no lasting consequences.
“People whom I helped break into showbiz now avoid discussing me,” Barr said. “Especially when they talk about censorship, which that cracks me up.”
Kimmel, recently suspended from ABC, returned this week without apology. His show aired Tuesday—but 70 local affiliates refused to carry the program, including 32 owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network giant joined Sinclair in pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Barr praised the decision: “I just love independent media,” she said on her podcast, The Roseanne Barr Podcast. “They’ve broken away from the big, you know, how can I say this? They decentralized information, and that’s what America wants and needs.”
Now, as media giants bend over backward to protect their liberal darlings, Barr questions the logic.
“ABC would protect their lowest rated shows for their shareholders and destroy their highest rated shows for their shareholders,” she argued.
Barr maintains that her firing wasn’t just a reaction to a tweet—it was politically motivated. In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, she claimed she was “told” Dungey fired her at the request of Michelle Obama herself.
While The Conners limped along and Kimmel returns to a split reception, Barr—now an independent media figure—remains unfiltered.
In her words: “I’ve been censored, erased, and replaced. But I’m still standing.”
