Roseanne Barr blames Michelle Obama for getting fired at ABC, calls Donald Trump a 'genius'
In the months since ABC canceled her show, Roseanne, last May, Roseanne Barr has put forth several explanations for her termination. Although the firing came in response to outrage over Barr’s racist tweet linking former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett, who is black, to the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes, the Jewish comedian has cited anti-Semitism and her views defending Israel. She has also previously claimed to have not known that Jarrett is black.
In a new interview with Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine, Barr blames her controversial tweet on her “inebriated condition” caused by mixing Ambien with “a couple of beers.” But her actual firing, she says, came at the behest of Michelle Obama.
According to Barr, the former first lady ordered then-president of ABC Entertainment Group Channing Dungey to send her packing for insulting Jarrett. Jarrett is a longtime Obama friend and colleague.
“She said, ‘This tweet is unforgivable,'” Barr told the magazine of Obama’s alleged involvement. “That’s what I was told and I tend to believe it because the woman who fired me is now working with the Obamas at Netflix.”
Dungey, who left ABC in November, has since been hired as Netflix’s vice president of original content. Barack and Michelle Obama have a multiyear production deal with the streaming network.
Barr added that her tweet — which she concedes was a “very stupid thing” — was intended to be an attack on the Obama administration’s ties to Iran, which she sees as anti-Semitic. She also cited unsubstantiated claims that the Iran-born Jarrett may be Muslim.
“I should have written it backwards,” she said. “It came out dyslexic. It should have been, ‘Valerie Jarrett’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have now allowed Iran’s government to remain, as in the movie Planet of the Apes.”
Along with Obama, she continued to blame anti-Semitic attitudes, which she feels prompted her termination.
“They wanted to take a Jew down,” she told the Times. “They wanted to take down a Zionist because they think that Zionists are the problem with everything in the world, and a lot of people in this country think like them.”
She also accused ABC of taking issue with her support of Donald Trump.
“They hate powerful women and they hate powerful, deplorable women and I do consider myself deplorable,” she said. “Deplorable is the greatest thing Hillary [Clinton] ever called us, because it empowered a revolution — we are deplorable to her kind. Of course, all working-class people are deplorable to her because it was working-class people that elected Trump.”
Speaking of the president, Barr had high praise for him — calling him a “genius” and a “real deep thinker.”
“Part of why I love Trump is that he took so many of my ideas,” she added when asked if she would consider another run for office.
She defended the president’s tweets, saying he is different from the “Trump puppet” that people see online.
“I’ve met him several times,” she said. “And don’t forget you can’t judge anyone for how they tweet on Twitter.”
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