Roseanne Barr is fighting to stay relevant but failing, PR experts say she is 'pouring salt in the wound'
Roseanne Barr is at it again. The disgraced 'Roseanne' star whose ABC show was canceled last year after her racist tweets about Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser of former President Barack Obama, has once again gone on a bizarre rant, on YouTube this time.
"Man, the word f-g is a really hateful word, isn’t it?" Barr said in the now deleted video on Sunday. "Let me just be real. I put the Q in LGBTQ," she said in the video. "Because I am queer as two motherf--kers. I'm queer, I'm alien, I don't belong here with all these people. They make no sense. They are very queer and that makes me a queer I guess. I did put the Q in it. Bye."
If you are confused about what this video is supposed to mean - if it's Barr coming out of the closet or just being herself, you are not alone.
For someone who has triggered too many controversies on social media, it definitely appears that she's trying very hard to just get back to the spotlight and failing miserably. Last year when her show shut shop abruptly, the network made it pretty clear that they had no place for her and it looks like everyone else agreed - Barr has not appeared anywhere at all despite claims last year that she was offered multiple TV projects.
Public relations expert Ronn Torossian, CEO of 5WPR, says that she's just making everything worse than it already is. "Roseanne is no stranger to stirring up controversy on social media. This has been a trying year for her after ABC canceled her show following a racist tweet last May," he says, "Right now, all she’s doing is pouring salt in the wound. If she really wanted to make a comeback, she would look for ways to remedy her situation instead of making it worse. This bizarre video did not resonate with anyone—if anything it just made people dislike her even more. While it’s clear that Roseanne is trying to stay in the spotlight, this shines a terrible light on her."
Barr's social media history has never been glorious. In 2014, the parents of George Zimmerman, the man accused of fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, filed a lawsuit against Barr for tweeting their home address and phone number in 2012.
In the first tweet, she had reportedly said, "At first I thought it was good to let ppl know that no one can hide anymore."
She deleted this one and tweeted another saying, "If Zimmerman isn't arrested I'll rt his address again -- maybe go 2 his house myself," she said.
She courted controversy a few years later again when she went on to talk about the tragic Parkland school shooting.
Barr, just months before 'Roseanne's cancelation tweeted that David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting, gave a Nazi salute at a March for Our Lives rally on March 24, 2018.
At the time, ABC ignored her antics but the racist tweet against Jarrett capped her career.
Torossian thinks that Barr's case is an example of the strength social media has. "Roseanne’s case is a clear example of the power of social media to impact an individual negatively, and how no amount of backtracking can undo what was done," he said referencing to her lengthy apology back in May.
"We’ve all said things we don’t really mean or things we wish we could take back. But, when you repeat your mistakes over and over again, no one will be willing to listen when you try and repair what was said or done."