Comedian Roseanne Barr has said that she begged ABC Television Group chief Ben Sherwood to not cancel her hit-sitcom “Roseanne” in the aftermath of her racist tweets against former President Barack Obama’s aide Valerie Jarrett.
The 65-year-old actor tweeted that she offered to apologise for remarks that kicked up a storm and eventually led to the cancellation of the show which recently returned for a 10th season after a hiatus of two-decades.
“I begged Ben Sherwood at ABC to let me apologize & make amends. I begged them not to cancel the show. I told them I was willing to do anything & asked for help in making things right. I’d worked doing publicity for them for free for weeks, traveling, through bronchitis. I begged for people’s jobs,” she wrote.
“He said: ‘what were you thinking when you did this?’ I said: ‘I thought she was white, she looks like my family!’ He scoffed & said: ‘what u have done is egregious, and unforgivable’. I begged for my crews jobs. Will I ever recover from this pain? omg,” she added.
In another tweet Barr apologised to actor Jayden Rey, who played Mary Connor, the daughter of DJ and his African American wife Geena on the show.
“The saddest part of all is for Jayden Rey on the show whom I grew to love so much & am so ashamed of myself that she would ever think I do not love her because she is African American. It’s the most gawd awful painful thing. I can’t let myself cave in though,” Barr tweeted.
In her controversial tweets, Barr had used Jarrett’s initials and wrote, “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.”
Following the tweets, ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said in a statement that the network has decided to cancel show due to Barr’s “abhorrent” remarks.
Barr tried to do damage control by tweeting an apology where she admitted that the joke was in poor taste and possibly a side effect of sleeping pills.
The network had already ordered a second season of “Roseanne”, which was one of the most-watched shows on TV.
The show dealt with contemporary issues like Donald Trump’s election as the US President, illegal immigration, and Muslim-Americans.
