Roseanne Barr Gives Heartbreaking Interview About Aftermath of Twitter Comments
Roseanne Barr recently sat down for an interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach to discuss the aftermath of the comments she made on Twitter that led to the cancellation of the revival of her super popular television series by ABC.
During the interview, Barr commented on the fact that she’s not at all a racist, just an idiot who happened to say the wrong thing and got severely punished for it.
The comment in question involved Barr referring to former White House advisor Valerie Jarrett in a dergatory manner, referencing the Planet of the Apes film.
Barr recently reached an agreement with the ABC network to do a spinoff of her show called The Connors which would include every character on the series but her. She stated the reason for signing on to the agreement as being to help employ all the folks who lost their jobs because of her grave error.
Ben Shapiro weighs in on the interview:
“What can I do now except say of course, I’m not a racist, I’m an idiot,” she stated. She added that the tweet “didn’t mean what they think I meant,” but accepted responsibility for it: “I have to face that it hurt people. When you hurt people even unwillingly there’s no excuse. I don’t want to run off and blather on with excuses. But I apologize to anyone who thought, or felt offended and who thought that I meant something that I, in fact, did not mean. It was my own ignorance, and there’s no excuse for that ignorance.”
My interview with @therealroseanne Roseanne Barr, her first since the controversy, where she speaks movingly and powerfully about Torah, Repentance, Jewish Values, and Taking Responsibility. Roseanne like you've never heard before… https://t.co/as8N37vdKW
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) June 24, 2018
There’s certainly plausibility to Barr’s claim regarding her mental problems. She’s had serious mental issues for years. Her political views have swung wildly from the far-left to the Trumpian right; she’s moved from baking cookies dressed as Hitler to grabbing her crotch while singing the national anthem. And comedians who know Barr have suggested that she’s been mentally troubled for years, from Joe Rogan to Jimmy Kimmel, who tweeted, “The real Roseanne I know could probably use some compassion and help right now.” Roseanne has herself acknowledged a “few nervous breakdowns,” a diagnosis of bipolar, and several hospitalizations.
Yet ABC was happy to put her on the air, knowing about her problems. It’s not wrong for ABC to pull her series, but there’s a case to be made that they knew what they were getting when they signed her up. In prior decades, studios protected their stars from public view for specifically this reason: many of those stars were similarly self-destructive, and studios realized they had to protect those stars from implosion. Thanks to the rise of social media and the radical increase in curiosity about the thoughts of celebrities themselves, carefully-cultivated public images have gone by the wayside, and all forms of thoughtvomit find their way to public view. The inevitable effect is that some troubled people, like Roseanne, blow themselves up.
At the end of the day, what Roseanne did was uncalled for and forced the network’s hand. The measures they took in cancelling the program were appropriate, however the real issue is the lack of consistency in the application of these principles among the major studios of Hollywood.
For example, HBO host Bill Maher made racist comments just last year and received only a slap on the wrist, being allowed to continue his program after making a canned apology statement.
Why is there so much grace for Maher, but not Roseanne? Easy. One is a raging leftist, an important cultural voice for progressives, and the other is a Trump supporter.
Let’s hope that over time, folks are able to forgive Barr like they are able to forgive Maher and she can resume her career.
Source: The Daily Wire
