Comedian Roseanne Barr says she 'begged' ABC network not to cancel her show
Comedian Roseanne Barr on Thursday revealed that she had begged ABC executives to not cancel her show, right before the television network pulled the show.
ABC on Tuesday announced that it was pulling the comedian's show 'Roseanne' from its network after she posted a racist tweet, comparing Valerie Jarrett, an African American woman, to an ape.
Roseanne had tweeted: "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” the initials referred to the former aide to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett. She later deleted her tweet.
"Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show," ABC in its statement said, adding that the show would not be renewed for a second season.
Barr took to Twitter on Thursday and tweeted more details of her fallout with ABC, saying that she "begged" her boss, the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group Ben Sherwood, to not cancel the show and give her a chance to redeem herself.
"I begged Ben Sherwood at ABC 2 let me apologize & make amends. I begged them not to cancel the show. I told them I was willing to do anything & asked 4 help in making things right. I'd worked doing publicity 4 them 4 free for weeks, traveling, thru bronchitis. I begged 4 ppls jobs," the comedian wrote.
She also tweeted excerpts of her conversation with Sherwood: "He said: what were you thinking when you did this? I said: I thought she was white, she looks like my family! He scoffed & said: "what u have done is egregious, and unforgivable.' I begged 4 my crews jobs. Will I ever recover from this pain? omg."
Bar, after the announcement of her show being pulled, had said that she was leaving Twitter. The comedian, however, has continued to make multiple statements through the popular micro-blogging site.
She had also blamed her racist tweet on a sleep medication, Ambien, however, she was slammed by Twitter users for holding the drug responsible for her actions, with many saying Ambien's side-effects do not include racism.
She also apologized to her "Roseanne" co-star, Jayden Rey, in a flurry of tweets on Thursday: "I think I'll b better tomorrow. The saddest part of all is 4 Jayden Rey on the show whom I grew2 love so much & am so ashamed of myself that she would ever think I do not love her bc she is African American. It's the most gawd awful painful thing. I can't let myself cave in tho," she added.
The comedian then proclaimed that she will be away from Twitter "for a while" and then a few hours later deleted her tweets about her begging ABC and her apology to Jayden Rey.
The only tweet which remained on her Twitter profile from Thursday stated that she was signing off from Twitter for a while and offered "everyone involved one more apology and prayers."
Barr's ex-husband, Tom Arnold, also commented on the incident and while talking to CNN said that she was "so into the conspiracy stuff with Donald Trump" that he felt an incident like this was bound to happen.
"I had a feeling this was going to happen when I first heard it was coming back,” Arnold said. “When I read her social media in the very beginning, and I saw how she was so into the conspiracy stuff with Donald Trump and so how far gone she was, and the ‘pizzagate’ and Hillary is a pedophile and Obama wasn’t born here, she was, you know, a ‘birther,’ and how crazy that was -- I just knew that this would not end well."