Roseanne Barr believes the racist 2018 tweet that caused her thriving sitcom to be taken off the air was an act of God.
The 72-year-old told Variety that she was pissed off in May of that year when she found out the writers on her eponymous reboot had gotten to work on the second season without her.
Enraged that her writers room had been “taken” from her, Barr downed a bunch of alcohol and sleeping pills, then eventually drifted off to sleep.
While the combination would likely knock many people out for multiple hours, she claims God woke her up at exactly the right time.
“I had my laptop there in bed, as always, and I opened it, and there was [a social media post with] a picture of Valerie Jarrett next to Helena Bonham Carter in full makeup as Ari in ‘Planet of the Apes,’ and they looked like Xerox copies of each other, so I captioned it.”
That caption compared Jarrett, a one-time senior advisor to President Barack Obama, to the offspring of a Muslim and an ape.
Barr, who was almost immediately fired from her show, claimed the comment was prompted by anger over U.S. relations with Iran and the 2015 nuclear deal, which Jarrett helped to implement.
Though she later issued an apology — saying she was unaware at the time that Jarrett is Black — in hindsight, Barr says she’s glad her social media post drew attention to the Obama administration’s work.
“The way I feel about it is that God told me to do what I did, and it was a nuclear bomb,” she told Variety of the instant media coverage that followed. “The day of my tweet, over 2 million Americans Googled Valerie Jarrett and the Iran deal. And that was my intent. So, whatever.”
Seven years later, Barr has no remorse for the tweet itself, but says she does regret her apology, which she believes was only weaponized against her.
“Never apologize to the Left because they rub that jackboot right in your face in the mud if you apologize,” she said.
Since being largely canceled by mainstream Hollywood, the Emmy Award winner has carved out a niche in MAGA media. She hosts a self-titled podcast, recently dropped a pro-Trump rap track called “Daddy’s Home” and is starring in a documentary titled “Roseanne Barr Is America,” which premieres Tuesday.
