ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey released a statement on Tuesday announcing that the sitcom "Roseanne" was no more after the show's star, Roseanne Barr, made racist remarks on Twitter about former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Barr's tweet, which has since been deleted, compared Jarrett to an ape and suggested she had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The early Tuesday tweet said: "Muslim Brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = VJ." Jarrett, who is African-American, was born in Shiraz, Iran, to American parents in 1956 during the Pahlavi dynasty. She is neither Muslim nor a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
When a fellow Twitter user observed that Barr's tweet was offensive and racist, Barr stated that "Muslims r NOT a race" and that "Islam is not a RACE, lefties. Islam includes EVERY RACE of people."
Realizing that her comment wouldn't be swept under the rug, Barr issued an apology hours later, suggesting that it was a joke gone bad.
— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) May 29, 2018
"I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans," Barr wrote in a tweet. "I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me — my joke was in bad taste."
Nearly two hours after Barr apologized, ABC News released Dungey's statement, announcing the end of the 65-year-old's show, a 2018 revival of the 1980s-90s sitcom.
"Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values and we have decided to cancel her show," Dungey's statement read.
Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of Disney, fired off a tweet supporting Dungey's decision to axe the show.
— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) May 29, 2018
Both the ABC television group and ABC News are owned by Disney.
Prior to news of the show's end, Barr's co-star Sara Gilbert condemned Barr's comments and urged that they did "not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show." Wanda Sykes, an African-American entertainer and consulting producer on the show, also stated before Dungey's announcement that she would not be returning to the sitcom.
A day before Barr found herself in the middle of a firestorm, she took to Twitter on Monday and falsely reported that Chelsea Clinton was married to a nephew of billionaire investor George Soros before apologizing for the mishap and stating that Clinton was actually married to "the son of a corrupt senator." She also returned to attacking Soros, who she accused of being a "nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth" in a subsequent tweet.
Barr is no debutante when it comes to making offensive remarks. According to the Daily Beast, in 2013 she accused former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice of being a "man with big swinging ape balls."
Barr has also been dropped by talent agency ICM partners.
