Roseanne Barr isn’t happy with the way her character’s disappearance from the Conners’ household was explained on ABC’s Roseanne spinoff The Conners on Tuesday night.
“I AIN’T DEAD, BITCHES!!!!” the comedian and actress tweeted just an hour after the episode finished airing. In a more measured joint statement with her friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach released late on
Tuesday, they said the “opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show.”
The show revealed that Roseanne’s character had died in her bed of what the family believed to be a heart attack following a knee surgery. Instead, a coroner’s report revealed, the character had died of an opioid overdose.
The reboot of Barr’s 1980s-1990s ABC hit Roseanne was canceled in May following a racist tweet from Barr about Valerie Jarrett, former White House senior advisor to Barack Obama. Spinoff The Conners was greenlighted in late June without the fictional household’s former matriarch, and without any creative or financial involvement from Barr.
Since her No. 1 ratings-hit reboot was canceled due to her Jarrett tweet, Barr has blamed the tweet on “mental illness” and the side effects of Ambien. She has also said she was fired because of a threatened advertiser boycott and because she voted for President Donald Trump.
In September, Barr claimed she was moving to Israel when The Conners aired. As of Monday, she was in Los Angeles to participate in a conversation about America and forgiveness with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Her Twitter page still reads that her location is “The Universe.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter