Roseanne Barr plans to interview herself on Youtube
On Sunday, Roseanne Barr tweeted that she was preparing for her first "TV interview" since being fired from her hit sitcom Roseanne for posting a racist joke on Twitter.
Now the US comedian has changed her mind, and will be interviewing herself instead. "After a lot of thought, I decided that I won’t be doing any TV interviews, too stressful & untrustworthy 4 me & my fans," she wrote on Twitter last night.
"I’m going to film it myself & post it on my youtube channel in the next week-the entire explanation of what happened & why! I love you all-sign up & get ready.”
The US TV network ABC cancelled Roseanne in May, after Barr tweeted that Valerie Jarret, an African-American former advisor to Barack Obama, was the offspring of the “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes".
When Barr was widely criticised for the tweet, she followed it up by tweeting “I thought she was Saudi", then later "I mistakenly thought she was white". The 65-year-old has since apologised for her comments, claimed the initial tweet was about antisemitism, and blamed her behaviour on the sleeping pill Ambien – prompting the drug company to reply that the sedative "does not cause racism".
Roseanne was important, boundary-demolishing TV - brought down by the repugnant views of its lead actress
ABC's head of entertainment, Channing Dungey, described Barr's remarks as “abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values".
The channel is currently working with the producers of Roseanne to create a spin-off called The Conners, based around the central character's daughter Darlene (played by Sara Gilbert).
The recent revival of Roseanne, which first aired from 1988–1997 and returned in March after a two-decade hiatus, was one of ABC's most popular scripted programmes, drawing more than 18 million US viewers.
