Roseanne Barr Unapologetic in Rant Against ABC, Former Co-Stars and Media

Roseanne Barr was not in an apologetic mood Tuesday night at a party celebrating the launch of Mr. Birchum, a politically incorrect animated show that marks her return to situation comedy after she was "canceled" from her own show six years ago for a tweet deemed racist.

In an interview with Newsweek, she promised not only a lawsuit against ABC, but also a tell-all book that will make her former co-stars from her show, Roseanne—later reconstituted as The Conners, though without her—a bit uncomfortable.

"Once I sue ABC and own it, then every show I put on will be about a fat bitch from the Midwest," she said.

"I'm writing a book about the show and I'm going to tell all of their secrets," she said of her former coworkers. "I'm telling every dirty, f---ing thing I know about every one of them. It's going to be great, because I kept those secrets all those years in the interest of the show."

She said that the only reason she hasn't spilled the alleged secrets already is because she's too nice.

"I was an idiot who cared about people and I went out of the way to help them," she said, adding that she bowed out of Roseanne to make it possible for ABC to create The Conners, and she allowed that to preserve the jobs of those who depended on the show.

"That's what people don't know about me, and the thing I regret most about myself. If I can f--- those people over the way they f---ed me over. G------it, it will be great," she said.

Barr also declined to apologize for claiming in a viral video last month that she had been "raped" by President Joe Biden, a skit interpreted as her way of mocking E. Jean Carroll's claim that Donald Trump assaulted her in 1995 and 1996. Carroll successfully sued Trump for assault and defamation and both cases have been appealed.

While Barr's skit was widely criticized by liberals and rape victims alike, some on the right praised it as a comedically important way to defend the GOP's presumptive nominee for president against accusations that are nearly three decades old and that he denies ever happened.

On Tuesday, she joked that the media got the story wrong, because she didn't mean that the president had raped her, because he's already dead, a reference to a little-known conspiracy theory that Biden was killed in Cuba and a lookalike is running the country.

Roseanne Barr at Premiere
Roseanne Barr in the front row at the premiere of "Mr. Birchum," an animated show where she plays a school principal. Barr is threatening to sue ABC and expose the secrets of her former co-workers.... Paul Bond, Newsweek

"Your news media is so crooked," she told Newsweek. "It was the original Joe Biden who raped me, the one that was killed at Guantanamo Bay by JAG, not the clone of Joe Biden at the White House. They killed him and replaced him with an actor in a mask, who I think is Jim Carrey."

"The mainstream media is almost dead. Just a few more weeks and kaput, then truth will bubble to the top," she said.

"The things that y'all tried to prevent, like Hunter Biden's laptop and Hillary Clinton selling uranium to Russia, and other things that, if I say them, it will get me killed, they'll bubble up because God is truth, and the truth shall set you free," she said.

The reference to the laptop concerns the president's son leaving his computer at a repair shop in October 2020. Conservatives alleged the contents contained evidence of corruption while Democrats, and initially the media, denied the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden. After the presidential election, several outlets reported that the laptop was genuine.

The reference to Clinton involves donations amounting to $145 million to the Clinton Foundation ahead of a sale of Uranium One to Rosatom, a corporation owned by Russia in 2010 when Clinton was secretary of state. An FBI investigation determined there was no wrongdoing.

Barr also explained her political transformation from left to right, acknowledging that she was once a "communist" but that it would cost her too much money if such a far-left party would ever come to power. She also acknowledged that her support of Trump may also be costing her money, given it makes her a pariah in Hollywood.

"Ask me again in a year," she said when Newsweek asked if her support of Trump was worth the cost.

"I'm a populist and Trump's a populist. I don't like elitists who tell us how to live and what shot we should take. I'm for freedom, and I've never changed," she said.

Barr was speaking to Newsweek just off the "wooden carpet" at the premiere of Mr. Birchum, a show from The Daily Wire, a conservative media outlet. The show takes aim at the so-called "woke" and stars Adam Carolla as a junior high school wood teacher, with Megyn Kelly as his wife and Barr as the school principal.

In public remarks after the first episode screened at a trendy nightclub in Los Angeles, Barr was also unapologetic about the tweet that got her show, Roseanne, canceled, though it was later brought back without Barr and renamed The Conners.

Her 2018 tweet suggested that Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, was the product of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes having a baby.

While Barr has apologized numerous times and made several excuses for the tweet, she embraced the social media post on Tuesday, claiming that it was prescient, tying it in with the war in Gaza.

"When I got canceled by the pedophile communists at ABC ... I'm just going to stick up for myself tonight," she began. "My tweet, they took it out of context, because it was about a three-month conversation between myself and journalists in Iran."

She said she was claiming back then that Obama's dealings with Iran would disenfranchise businesswomen in Iran and "unleash a militaristic attack on Israel," and that she used Planet of the Apes as a metaphor for an "attack on humans."

"Can you imagine on October 7 the horror I felt, because I was a little ahead of my time. So f--- you, everybody," she said before adding that, when the time comes, she'd like her tombstone to read, "Kiss my ass. Peace on Earth."

ABC did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

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About the writer


Paul Bond has been a journalist for three decades. Prior to joining Newsweek he was with The Hollywood Reporter. He ... Read more

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