‘She stabbed me in the back!’: Roseanne Barr accuses former co-star Sara Gilbert of betraying her amid 2018 sitcom cancellation

2023-05-19 10:49

ABC sitcom 'Roseanne' was canceled in 2018 after Roseanne Barr's racist tweet about former President Barack Obama's advisor Valerie Jarrett

HONOKAA, HAWAII: Roseanne Barr, 70, recently appeared on ‘The Megyn Kelly Show’ and said that her former co-star Sara Gilbert, 48, who played her onscreen daughter in the canceled ABC sitcom ‘Roseanne’, “stabbed me in the back” and “repeatedly twisted” the knife. The comedian even accused Gilbert of causing the show’s cancelation in 2018.

ABC pulled the plug on the hit sitcom after Barr’s racist tweet about former President Barack Obama’s advisor Valerie Jarrett. At the time she said that Jarrett, who is African-American, looked like the “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.” Several celebrities publicly called out Barr in the wake of the controversy, including Gilbert. In her latest interview, Barr said she was shocked by Gilbert’s response to the situation and blamed her tweet for the sudden cancelation of the show.

Roseanne Barr 'forgives' co-stars Sara Gilbert and Michael Fishman for condemning her racist tweets

Why is Roseanne Barr accusing Sara Gilbert?

During her appearance on ‘The Megyn Kelly Show’ on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, Barr said Gilbert “begged me to come back” to star in the 2018 reboot of ‘Roseanne' which the latter produced. Barr said Gilbert gave her assurances and said, “‘I've got your back this time. I won't let anyone at you. I won't let anyone hurt you. I'm gonna protect you.’” However, Barr claimed Gilbert stabbed her “in the back” by publicly condemning her behavior.

“All the crap she told me and then she tweeted, ‘It's sad when one cast member...’ something about racist blah blah, and I was floored. I was just floored,” she explained. “And you know, but she ends up owning my work and Tom Werner becomes her partner in owning my work,” Barr continued. “It was her tweet that canceled the show,” the comedian alleged.

Barr also said that she had to call Gilbert at the time to ask her to stop mentioning the situation on ‘The Talk’, a daytime CBS talk show created and co-hosted by Gilbert. “It wasn't enough that she stabbed me in the back, and did what she did to me there, but then she would go on her talk show every day and talk about how shocked she was at my racism on top of it,” Barr said. “I called her up and I said, ‘You better shut your blanking mouth about me. I'm telling you, you better shut your effing mouth.’ And then she did, but, you know, my voice can be very scary,” she added.

In the wake of Barr’s racism controversy, ABC canceled ‘Roseanne’ and launched a spinoff titled ‘The Conners’, which was recently renewed for the sixth season. Gilbert served as the executive producer of the show and the show starred all actors from the original sitcom except for Barr. The first episode of the spin-off showed that Barr’s character, Roseanne, has died offscreen.

Barr said that she felt the script sent her a chilling “message”. “They just tried to kill me, and I felt like they killed my character and my character,” Barr shared. “I thought they were sending a message over the airwaves because they knew I had mental health issues. I thought they wanted me to kill myself, and all my friends did too. They said they're trying to push you to suicide,” she alleged.

What did Sara Gilbert say about ‘Roseanne’ cancelation?

In the wake of Barr’s controversy, Gilbert took to Twitter to call the former’s behavior “abhorrent”. “Roseanne’s recent comments about Valerie Jarrett, and so much more, are abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show. I am disappointed in her actions to say the least,” she tweeted at the time.

Gilbert also addressed the cancelation of the show on ‘The Talk’ and said that she supported ABC’s decision to pull the plug on the sitcom. “I would like to say this has been a very difficult week. A lot of people have been hurt by this,” the actress said at the time. “I will say I’m proud of the show we made,” she continued. “[Roseanne] has always been about diversity, love and inclusion, and it’s sad to see it end in this way. I’m sad for the people who lost their jobs in the process. However, I do stand behind the decision that ABC made,” Gilbert stated.

Inside the feud on the sets of ‘Roseanne’

Even before Barr’s racist tweet about Jarrett, there were rumors of a feud on the sets of ‘Roseanne’. An insider told Radar Online at the time that Barr’s behavior did not sit well with other cast members, especially Gilbert. “Everyone is already fed up with her controlling ways,” a source told the outlet. “Sara and the rest of the cast put up with Roseanne's behavior for almost a decade,” they added. “They are all thrilled that the show got picked up for another season, but they do not know how they will get through this season if Roseanne continues to act the way that she is,” the insider alleged.

They also said that Barr and Gilbert had creative differences, specifically in connection to political dialogues on the show. “The two have been going at it over creative differences, particularly when it comes to political dialogue that is in the script,” the source shared in reference to Barr’s on-air support of then-president Donald Trump. “Nothing has changed with her and she is just as difficult now as she was then,” the insider added.

Barr called out Gilbert and her other ‘Roseanne’ co-star Michael Fisherman for condemning her after she received backlash over the racist tweet. She accused Fisherman and Gilbert of throwing her “under the bus”. Although Barr later tweeted that she forgave them, a year later she told the Washington Post that Gilbert “destroyed the show and my life with that tweet.”