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ROSEANNE: ABC TV Show Cancelled; Roseanne Barr Dropped By Agent & Syndicators After Racist Tweet

Rosanne Barr Roseanne Season 11 Premiere

Roseanne Cancelled After Rosanne Barr’s Racist Tweet

The revival of Roseanne came to an end today with a racist tweet by its star Roseanne Barr. Hours after the tweet was published on Twitter, ABC cancelled Roseanne. The series had just ended its tenth season on May 22, 2018. The deleterious tweet was about a former President Barack Obama aide, Valerie Jarrett, and what Roseanne Barr believed to be Jarrett’s religion and her ancestry.

Roseanne Barr Racist Tweet

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The tweet was abhorrent, vile, and came from Roseanne Barr’s core. It sparked wide-spread condemnation in Hollywood and across the Internet. Chief among those critics were cast members of Roseanne, its behind-the-scenes personnel, and the leadership of ABC.

Roseanne co-star Sara Gilbert was very local in her disgust for Roseanne Barr’s comments:

Roseanne’s comment came for the sewer of racial animus. Though most of the cast ultimately stayed on-board the show after the tweet, some, like Emma Kenney, were heading for the exit:

Other people, like Roseanne consulting producer Wandar Sykes, acted before the cancellation news broke:

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ABC responded in due course, mulling over the pros and cons of all possible decisions and responses to what Roseanne Barr had said to the world on Twitter.

Roseanne’s apology:

https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/1001470384556752898

https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/1001471669641216005

Fell on deaf ears.

ABC’s inevitable decision, led by ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey, was to sever all ties with Roseanne Barr and to cancel Barr’s highly rated television show in a curt released statement:

Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.

Robert Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, seconded Dungey’s decision:

Empathy is tough in this situation but it is there.

With all the tumult and reactions to Roseanne Barr’s tweet that have occurred in the last two days, I fell sorry for all parties involved.

The cast and crew of Roseanne had put in so much hard work to make Roseanne‘s revival a success and now that has all been thrown away. I am sure that more than a few of them made financial plans based upon the salaries that they would be receiving from Season 11 of Roseanne. That is all gone now along with the security that a regular pay check provides an individual, their psyche, and the future outlook of their family.

I feel sorry for Valerie Jarrett, who out of left field got slammed with unmitigated racism from a popular TV celebrity. I can’t imagine waking up, going through your normal morning routine, and then to be notified of a racist slur about you circulating Twitter and the Internet.

Ms. Jarrett has held her head high throughout this ordeal, offering these ideas and thoughts:

“I think we have to turn it into a teaching moment.” 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.”

“The person who is walking down the street minding their own business and they see somebody cling to their purse or want to cross the street; or every black parent I know who has a boy who has to sit down and have a conversation, ‘the talk,’ as we call it,” she said.

“As you say, those ordinary examples of racism that happen every single day. I think that is why I am so glad to be here this evening talking with all of you.”

I also feel sorry for Roseanne Barr. That may be hard for some of you to believe but its true. Roseanne should have known better, should never have tweeted what she did, and made a critical mistake. We all make mistakes, though, as we are all human. I am not defending Roseanne in the slightest but I do have a residue of compassion for the nightmare that she has brought down on her own head and those around her.

Roseanne is now suffering the swift, rolling-wave, lesson-burning results of her intemperance:

Streaming service Hulu announced on Tuesday it would no longer air episodes of “Roseanne” after ABC canceled the show following Roseanne Barr’s racist tweets about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.

Several networks, including Viacom’s CMT, TV Land and the Paramount Network, also announced they would be pulling the show from their airwaves.

The Laff broadcast network also announced they would be pulling the show’s reruns, saying it was “disgusted” by Barr’s tweets.

231 episodes of Roseanne exist. Syndication for a TV is possible at 100 episodes. The principal cast member of Roseanne were not only receiving regular syndication paychecks from Roseanne, they may have been receiving double syndication paychecks (like the cast members of That 70’s Show) since Roseanne had two hundred episodes available for syndication.

Those future paychecks from previous work on Roseanne are gone now. The principal cast members of Roseanne must have been receiving those checks for over twenty years (from 1997-2018). Those syndication checks stop, if they didn’t already since the show was revived in 2018, as of today. No one will be airing episodes of Roseanne in the United States in the foreseeable future.

Roseanne Barr’s talent agent and agency also saw fit to cut ties with the embattled comedian today. ICM Partners will no longer be representing Barr in any way, shape, or form.

“We are all greatly distressed by the disgraceful and unacceptable tweet from Roseanne Barr this morning,” the agency’s leadership said in an internal memo to company employees. “What she wrote is antithetical to our core values, both as individuals and as an agency. Consequently, we have notified her that we will not represent her. Effective immediately, Roseanne Barr is no longer a client.”

In this climate of zero tolerance, old, antiquated, bigoted behaviors, sentiments, slights, etc. are now atomic weapons that blow up in the face of their spewer.

Roseanne Barr is the latest example of that, but unlike other similar cases, there was collateral damage.

Leave your thoughts on Roseanne‘s cancellation after Rosanne Barr’s racist tweet below in the comments section. Readers seeking more TV show news can visit our TV Show News Page, our TV Show News Google+ Page, and our TV Show News Facebook. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook.

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Rollo Tomasi

Rollo Tomasi is a Connecticut-based film critic, TV show critic, news, and editorial writer. He will have a MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University in 2025. Rollo has written over 700 film, TV show, short film, Blu-ray, and 4K-Ultra reviews. His reviews are published in IMDb's External Reviews and in Google News. Previously you could find his work at Empire Movies, Blogcritics, and AltFilmGuide. Now you can find his work at FilmBook.
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