ABC’s Roseanne Canceled Following Racist Tweet

ABC canceled its reboot of hit 90’s sitcom “Roseanne” this past Tuesday after the show’s star, Roseanne Barr, racially targeted a former White House Adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett.

The tweet focused on racially degrading Jarrett for being African American, although she later claimed that she thought Jarrett was white.

“Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr said in her Tweet.

As soon as ABC’s executives caught wind of the Tweet, Barr was immediately fired and the show was canceled completely.

“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values,” Channing Dungey, president of ABC Entertainment, said according to MarketWatch.com. “We have decided to cancel her show.”

Barr blamed Ambien, a medication used to treat insomnia, for her erratic behavior and apologized to her Twitter followers.

“Not giving excuses for what I did (tweeted) but I’ve done weird stuff while on Ambien – cracked eggs on the wall at 2 am etc,” Barr tweeted. “I went 2 far & do not want it defended – it was egregious Indefensible. I made a mistake I wish I hadn’t but…don’t defend it please.”

Many of her followers had trouble excusing her behavior solely based on her use of a medication and continued to cite her as a racist.

“I have only taken Ambien once … but I don’t remember one of the side-effects being racism,” John Berman of CNN tweeted.

U.S. President Donald Trump voiced his own grievances about Jarrett receiving a personal call from Disney CEO Bob Iger over the situation, while Trump himself has not.

“Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?” he said in a tweet.

Barr said she begged ABC executives to not cancel her show and even pleaded to take the jobs of crew members.

“I begged Ben Sherwood at ABC 2 let me apologize & make amends. I begged them not to cancel the show,” she tweeted. “I told them I was willing to do anything & asked 4 help in making things right. I’d worked doing publicity 4 them 4 free for weeks, traveling, thru bronchitis. I begged 4 ppls jobs.”

Jarrett responded to the situation and used it to shed light on the prevalence of racism in today’s societies.

“I think we have to turn it into a teaching moment,” Jarrett said. “I’m fine. I’m worried about all the people out there who don’t have a circle of friends and followers who come right to their defense.”