Comedian Roseanne Barr brutally mocked by Twitter users for her Ambien defense
Comedian Roseanne Barr was brutally mocked by Twitter users on Tuesday after she seemingly blamed Ambien, a sleep medication, and Memorial Day for her racist tweet. The tweet spurred ABC, the network which airs the sitcom Roseanne, to scrap her show.
The comedian, in her scandalous tweet, had compared an African American woman to an ape, according to reports.
She had tweeted: "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” the initials referred to a former aide to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett. She later deleted her tweet.
ABC, in a statement on Tuesday, said that Roseanne's show would not be renewed for a second season after what it called her "abhorrent" and "repugnant" tweets.
The comedian, however, later blamed her racist tweet on the sleep medication she was on while she was writing the tweet on the popular micro-blogging site.
Barr wrote: "guys I did something unforgiveable so do not defend me. 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. I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but...don’t defend it please. ty"
The comedian later added:
"I think Joe Rogan is right about ambien. Not giving excuses for what I did(tweeted) but I’ve done weird stuff while on ambien-cracked eggs on the wall at 2am etc -"
Shortly after Barr's tweet, the word 'Ambien' began to trend on Twitter, with many of the users who have taken the drug sharing their own experiences and taking down the comedian with their tweets.
Even Ambien's parent company Sanofi took the opportunity to troll Roseanne.
Reports state that after ABC scrapped "Roseanne" from its network, the show's reruns from Huhu were also pulled. The comedian's talent agency also reportedly dropped her later that day.