Roseanne Barr surprised the world when she brought back her 90's sitcom to monster ratings. The revival had a political spin, with Roseanne Conner becoming a outspoken Trump supporter, much like the real Roseanne. Other characters like Jackie were more liberal, and one new character, Mark was gender nonconforming. Apparently, a lot of Americans can relate to arguing about politics with family members.
But then Roseanne surprised the world again by posting a racist tweet about former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. Valerie is a African-American woman born in Iran, and Roseanne tweeted, "brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj." Considering the long, ugly history of African-Americans being compared to apes and monkeys, that tweet came off pretty racist. The world condemned Roseanne and ABC cancelled her show immediately.
Roseanne has struggled to crawl out of this mess. She apologized and tried to explain her behavior, tweeting, "It was 2 in the morning and I was ambien tweeting." Then everyone mocked her for trying to blame racist comments on Ambien. Even Sonofi, the company that manufactures Ambien threw some shade, tweeting, "Racism is not a known side effect."
ABC announced that they are moving forward with a spin-off series, meaning the sitcom will feature everyone from Roseanne except for Roseanne. The working title is The Conners. Right now, nobody knows how they will write Roseanne's character off, or if the experiment will be a success or a failure. In a statement, Roseanne she regretted what she did and "agreed to the settlement in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved."
In her first interview since the scandal, Roseanne broke down in tears. She insisted, "I never would have wittingly called any black person and say they are a monkey. ... And people think that I did that and it just kills me. I’m just so sorry that I was so unclear and stupid." She acknowledged that her tweet hurt people, and expressed frustration about her critics. "They don't accept my apology, or explanation. And I've made myself a hate magnet."
Finding the media "untrustworthy," Roseanne tweeted plans to explain herself once more, totally unfiltered, on her YouTube channel. The first video is bizarre, and appears to be part of a longer interview. In the one minute clip, the actress looks frustrated and disheveled, speaking to an off-screen producer. Their conversation builds up to an epic outburst, with Roseanne screaming at the camera: "I thought the bitch was white!"
The flare-up begins with Roseanne venting, "I’m trying to talk about Iran! I’m trying to talk about Valerie Jarrett wrote the Iran deal!" The producer says, "I know. You’ve told me this 300 times." Roseanne says, "That’s what my tweet was about!” The producer says, "I know. You’ve explained this literally 300 times." Then Roseanne screams, "I thought the bitch was white! God dammit! I thought the bitch was white! F---!"
Well, I'm glad she cleared that up! So, Roseanne's a YouTuber now. I'm not surprised.