Roseanne Barr officially removed herself from the Roseanne franchise recently, and some may be surprised to find out she offered to do it with no strings attached. Barr revealed that when she came to the table to discuss giving up her rights to Roseanne and the newly announced spinoff The Conners, she asked for nothing in return. Addressing her departure from the ABC Roseanne reboot, the comedian said:
I didn't ask to be paid off, I asked for nothing, and I just stepped away ... because that is penance. I put a lot of thought into it.
Rumors first surfaced about negotiations between ABC and Roseanne Barr long before the deal was made official and, at the time, it was believed by many the network was going to cut Barr a one-time check for her severing all ties with the Roseanne franchise. Barr told Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in an upcoming podcast (via The Blast) she believed that in asking she not paid off, the deed would serve as her penance for her controversial tweets that resulted in ABC canceling the Roseanne revival.
Roseanne Barr stated she was upset about people initially losing their jobs due to her actions, and specifically mentioned the actress who played her youngest grand-daughter Jayden Rey. Barr said she loved Rey and that Rey loved her, and that she didn't want the young African-American actress to have a negative view of her or Jewish people due to her actions. Barr did not make specific mention of her other co-stars, a good number of whom took to social media to condemn the former star's controversial statement when the story broke.
Barr concluded things by saying she regretted her actions even before the show's cancellation, and that she's "lost everything," due to her mistake. Barr added, however, that she told God she was willing to accept the consequences that came along with the controversy because she knew what she did was wrong. Prior to Roseanne's cancellation, Barr was reported to be making around $250,000 per episode. Though Barr stated she did not ask to be paid off, reports at the time the spinoff was announced said that Barr received a financial settlement of some sort from Werner Entertainment, although the exact amount is unknown at this time.
Roseanne is gone, but The Conners is expected to premiere this fall on ABC Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. ET. For a look at a whole heap of summer programming that can be enjoyed before then, visit and bookmark our summer premiere guide. For more on Roseanne and what others had to say about the actress getting removed from her program, check out another former television legend Jerry Seinfeld offering his take on the situation.
