When the Roseanne reboot The Conners airs in the fall without her, Roseanne Barr says she will be far away to avoid seeing it.
“I have an opportunity to go to Israel for a few months and study with my favorite teachers over there, and that’s where I’m going to go and probably move somewhere there and study with my favorite teachers,” the actress said in a new podcast with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the latest of many such appearances with the rabbi. “I have saved a few pennies and I’m so lucky I can go … and study with any rabbi that I can ask to teach me, and it’s my great joy and privilege to be a Jewish woman.”
Barr said she wishes no ill will on anyone still associated with the show.
“I’m not going to curse it or bless it,” she said. “I’m staying neutral. That’s what I do. I’m staying neutral. I’m staying away from it. Not wishing bad on anyone and I don’t wish good for my enemies. I don’t. I can’t. I just stay neutral. That’s what I gotta do. I have some mental health issues of depression and stuff. I got to stay in the middle or I’ll go dark, and I don’t want to go dark again. I’ve done it. After all, I was married to Tom Arnold. Ha ha.”
She said she doesn’t want to watch the show or hear any of the commentary surrounding it. She predicted that the pundits will opine that Barr “never was any damn good” and they are “glad she’s gone.” She said at some point she may be tempted to have too many drinks and “I’ll call Elon Musk and tell himself to fuck himself or something and then I’ll go to jail. I can’t stop myself. Once I go dark — I’d rather stay light. I don’t like Hollywood. I’m leaving California because I’m sure it’s going to fall into the sea soon.”
Barr also revealed she “went to Nashville and cut a record” — saying she actually always dreamed of being a singer, and not necessarily a comedian. “I’m singing and getting better,” she said. “I’m not great, or even good, but I’m better.”
Barr added that she’s already working on a new sitcom: “I’m very excited. It’s very funny.” She did not elaborate on the project.
ABC decided to cancel her hit series on May 29 following a racist tweet about former Barack Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. At the time, ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
Barr, who has apologized to Jarrett since the original tweet, previously stated that she was on Ambien when she wrote the tweet, and also claimed she was unaware that Jarrett is black. She has also insisted that the tweet was “about anti-Semitism,” and has also claimed that her show was canceled because she is a Trump voter.
On Boteach’s latest podcast, Barr said while she is actually sorry for what she tweeted, she regrets apologizing publicly.
“My friends told me at the beginning, ‘Oh my god, you made a fatal mistake, and that is you apologized to the left and once you apologize they never forgive, they just try to beat you down until you don’t exist,'” she said, adding: “It’s just sad.”
She continued: “I should never have said I’m sorry in their world. In my world, I had to because I was sorry. For crying out loud, I was sorry. People were so angry and, I have to say, a little bit ill-informed about me that they would put me in the same box where they have people who call for the death of all Jews and want to enslave all black people — real racists that actually exist. They put me in this box with them, and how do they think that’s going to affect me? They don’t, and they’re under mind control.”
She went on: “Maybe there’s some things you guys don’t know because it doesn’t evoke feeling in you but it’s actually fact, and facts matter. People have got to stick to science, scientific fact, logic, data, proof, numbers — people have got to go for that and not emotions. This is an unprecedented period in American history. Get the facts. Arm yourself with them.”
Barr said she was encouraged to go on a “sensitivity tour” — she didn’t specify by whom — where she “admitted what I didn’t do, and lied.”
She said she’s been going through a mourning period since the cancellation of the reboot: “It was a death to me. The death of a character I created.” Barr added that many fans have told her they felt like the network “killed our mother” when they canceled the show.
Barr previously addressed her feelings on The Conners during a live taping of Boteach’s podcast at the New York Comedy Club in July. At the time, she said, “Well, I have mixed emotions and I go up and down with it. Sometimes I’m good with it sometimes I’m not; I’m human,” she said. When asked if the show will succeed without her, Barr replied, “Well it is going to be interesting to see a bunch of really privileged people who grew up in Hollywood writing for the working class,” but added that she “doesn’t wish anyone bad.”