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Roseanne Has Mixed Emotions About ‘The Conners’ Continuing Without Her: “It Is Going to Be Interesting”
In the wake of Roseanne‘s cancellation by ABC following star Roseanne Barr‘s racist tweet, it has been announced that season two of the popular show will premiere under a new name, The Conners, this fall.
And, during a candid interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach at NYC’s Stand Up NY comedy club on Thursday, July 26, Roseanne, 65, opened up about feeling mixed emotions about the show she helped bring back to TV now continuing on without her.
“Well it is going to be interesting to see a bunch of really privileged people who grew up in Hollywood writing for the working class. That’ll be interesting. But I don’t know. I don’t wish nobody bad, I don’t wish anybody to be destroyed like I have been or to be disrespected or to lose their job. I’m not that kind of person, I’m not a troll that rubs their hands together waiting for somebody to suffer,” she said during the Barr’D: An Intimate Evening With Roseanne Barr event.
When The Conners premieres on ABC on Oct. 16, Roseanne’s former co-stars John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson, and Michael Fishman will all return, but Roseanne‘s eponymous star will no longer be included in the show and Roseanne was asked by the network to revoke all of her rights to the series’ profits.
While speaking with Rabbi Shmuley, the actress confessed she’ll miss working with the cast, who also all starred alongside Roseanne in the original Roseanne show, which previously aired on ABC from 1988 until 1997.
“I think they lost a good friend. I know when my friends are in trouble, I do what you do with a friend, I don’t pile on, but you know it’s a very fearful atmosphere in in Hollywood and I understand why they wanted to distance themselves, because that’s that’s the way it works,” she said.
Now, in retrospect, Roseanne admitted she “felt terrible” in the aftermath of publishing her racist tweet about Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. “I just felt terrible. I felt just terrible and there are so many layers to that feeing terrible, that people would think that I would say that… that I would say what they said I said which isn’t what I said,” she told Rabbi Shmuley.
“At the height of my fame and power, that I would I would say such a stupid thing as they interpreted it to be which it is not and then I was caught in like, ‘Wow. They’re doing the wrong but yet I’ve done wrong,'” Roseanne continued. “So there was a lot of layers to it. So what you have to do is you just have to be very self-reflective and ask God for help and that’s what I did. I needed God to help me because I couldn’t figure it out.”
“I couldn’t figure out what had happened and why it happened because it didn’t make any sense and it wasn’t what I said or meant. And it was terrifying, and depressing. And my life’s work, and people I loved and thought of as family. It was like so awful, I was like oh my God, I mean it was just so awful,” she said.
“But I lived through it, it’s been two months. And God has… I can’t think of the word… God has shown we great love, and so have people. And that’s very healing when people show you great love,” Roseanne added.
