At the beginning of this week, ABC made the decision to drop Roseanne Barr's self-titled show from its network after the actress tweeted racist comments about Valerie Jarrett. "Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values and we have decided to cancel her show," said Channing Dungey, ABC's president of entertainment, in a public statement.
Shortly after the news broke, Barr offered an apology on the social media platform, saying, "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."
However, she later backtracked slightly by (bizarrely) implicating her sleeping pills for the racist outburst: "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-it was egregious Indefensible."
After that, she went on to retweet a bunch of people who were defending her. So - overall - all she managed to do was cause a bit of a Twitterstorm on top of the fiasco she'd already created with the original tweet.
And it only got worse once her on-screen son joined in.
Michael Fishman (aka D.J. Conner) kicked off the feud on Tuesday when he tweeted a statement outlining his views on the events that led to the show being axed.
"My character was designed to represent the inclusive nature of my views," he said. "To represent portions of society often marginalized. In this moment it is important to be clear. We must stand up against bias, hatred, bigotry and ignorance to make society a better place for all."
Barr then retaliated, saying that Fishman was throwing her under the bus:
And, surprisingly, Fishman responded pretty well. Rather than fight against her, he reacted cordially, and conceded that she did, indeed, create a platform for inclusivity - but she also let it fall apart.
"You fought, built, and designed Roseanne for inclusiveness," he wrote. "That is why yesterday was so out of character with the last 30 years. It was in your hands from the beginning to the end. No one can deny that."
But Barr couldn't let him have the last word.
She's also since come out to say that her tweet was not, in fact, "racist", as everyone is saying (although how comparing a black woman to an ape isn't racist is beyond me) - but was actually just "insensitive".
What's more, the actress has now started to become more explicitly defensive of her actions and rounded off one argument by saying: "you guys make me feel like fighting back. I will examine all of my options carefully and get back to U."
Fishman has since posted another long statement, in which he explained that people are "flawed", and being a successful person does not mean having an absence of mistakes on one's track record, but rather making the effort to learn from errors that do happen.
Ultimately, it's become clear by now that Barr was certainly in error when she posted the tweet about Jarrett, and she should never have thought that using such language was excusable in any way. The best thing for her would have been to simply leave Twitter for a while - as she said she would - but, instead, she is continuing to roll out excuse after excuse.
Hopefully, with time, she will come to see why Fishman and other co-stars (as well as fans) are unhappy with her, and will fully accept responsibility for her actions.
