Roseanne Barr Heartbroken Over Estranged ‘Roseanne’ Family While Pitching New Sitcom

Few TV families have been as cherished, or as deeply fractured, as the Conners of ‘Roseanne’. The saga of Roseanne Barr’s estranged TV family has lingered over the sitcom for years, long after the cameras stopped rolling on its revival.

At her peak, Barr was arguably the most influential woman in television, earning $1 million per episode during the original ABC run from 1988 to 1997. However, in 2018, the network canceled the revival after she posted a tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett that was widely condemned as racist. The show was reworked into ‘The Conners’, which killed off Barr’s character with a drug overdose and aired for 7 seasons.

Eight years later, Barr is finally addressing the impact of that fallout on the actors who once portrayed her on-screen family. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she was asked about her relationship with John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf. Her response was brief: “I don’t.”

When asked if she is in contact with them at all, Barr replied, “Of course not.” The interviewer noted that he had assumed the cast was like a real family, to which she responded, “I did too.”

She then expressed her feelings succinctly: “Nobody is more brokenhearted than me,” Barr said. “I just choose to remember the fun and the good times.”

Goodman has echoed similar sentiments. In an interview last year, he mentioned that the two had not spoken in about 7 or 8 years. Barr claims her son recently asked Goodman to make a cameo in her new show, but he declined.

The rift extends beyond Goodman and Metcalf. Michael Fishman, who played her on-screen son, stated that ‘Roseanne’ was rightfully canceled, prompting Barr to call him a worm.

Barr is also still upset about how ‘The Conners’ handled her departure. She noted that ABC would only proceed with the spinoff if she was not involved, and she found the opioid-overdose death of her character to be insulting, especially considering how many fans still approach her to say, “You were my mom.”

Additionally, she commented on a separate dispute regarding writing credits from the original sitcom. Chuck Lorre’s memoir claims he was forced to write scripts credited to Tom Arnold, and Barr’s ex-husband responded vigorously. Barr sided with him, stating, “Tom Arnold is telling the truth for once,” and expressed gratitude for his defense.

Barr maintains that the Jarrett tweet was not racist, despite the widespread backlash it received. She also claims she sensed ABC had “taken my show” before the tweet, after discovering that the writers had been back for at least a month without her.

The conversation serves as a springboard for her upcoming project, ‘Meemaw: A Modern Day Fable’. This self-financed, single-camera sitcom is loosely based on her life in Texas Hill Country, featuring Barr as the matriarch of a mixed-race family who encounters legal troubles while raising funds for her granddaughter’s bat mitzvah.

Drea de Matteo plays her daughter, Omar Gooding portrays her son-in-law, and Randy Quaid appears as a local sheriff. THR, which got an exclusive sneak peek, notes that the tone is more aligned with trailer park comedies like ‘My Name Is Earl’ than the three-camera repartee of ‘Roseanne’.

Barr mentioned that casting faced resistance, with some Black comedians opting not to work with her, which she found hurtful. Reflecting on the revival’s premiere, she stated that the audience’s response reassured her that “I knew I hadn’t lost my connection to people’s hearts.”

Financing for the new show was secured through a co-production with Just the News founder John Solomon, who shared the costs with Barr. Currently, the series still needs a network, and Barr’s pitch to the industry is straightforward: if anyone wants “a number one show,” she asserted, “I got it.”

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