Comic Roseanne Barr is “grateful” the National Enquirer found the daughter she gave up for adoption in 1971.
The 72-year-old former sitcom star claims in the new documentary “Roseanne is America” that the National Enquirer located Brandi Brown after bribing a Colorado records department worker, according to People.
Barr was 18 and unmarried when she gave birth to her first child, whom she said she gave up because her mom feared keeping the baby could bring shame to the family.
“When I gave my daughter up for adoption, I said to her, ‘I’ll see you again when you’re 18 because I’m not going to change my name, and I’m going to be famous,” Barr said.
She claimed she also told her child that fame would come in the form of a show named “Roseanne,” which launched on ABC in 1988 to 1997 and was briefly rebooted in 2018.
According to Barr, she was initially upset with the National Enquirer when the publication contacted her shortly before Brown turned 18 years old to say she’d been identified. Barr said she’d made information available that Brown could’ve used to find her after turning 21.
The Emmy Award winning performer reportedly told her other three children at the time about their elder sibling a year before the National Enquirer got its big scoop, because she thought Brown might come looking for her. Rather than letting the notorious tabloid break the news to her family, Barr said she hired a detective and found Brown.
Several years after giving birth to Brown, Barr married her first husband, Bill Pentland. They had two daughters and a son. She also had a son with her third husband, Ben Thomas, in 1995. Barr was married to comedian Tom Arnold from 1990 to 1994. They had no children together.
