The Conners recently received good news from ABC, with the announcement of a sixth season to come this fall (though probably later than usual). However, as fans celebrate the renewal news, it might be easy to forget that five years ago the spinoff was born after controversial comments from Rosanne Barr caused the cancellation of her eponymous sitcom. Barr certainly hasn’t forgotten that, and she spoke out again recently, putting the blame on her former co-star Sara Gilbert, saying that The Conners star “stabbed me in the back.”
Roseanne Barr has seemingly always seen Sara Gilbert as the reason the Roseanne revival came to end, after the Darlene portrayer denounced Barr’s racist tweet about former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, with Barr even comparing Gilbert to Hanibal Lector. The former queen of primetime repeated similar sentiments on The Megyn Kelly Show’s YouTube channel in a conversation about cancel culture, in which Barr said:
Sara Gilbert was on The Talk, and it wasn’t enough that she stabbed me in the back and did what she did to me there, but then she would go on her talk show every day and talk about how shocked she was at my racism on top of it, and it was every day.
Not only does Roseanne Barr feel that Sara Gilbert speaking out on Twitter led to her show’s cancellation, but she was clearly hurt by her former co-star’s discussions of the issue on the CBS daytime talk show.
However, the Roseanne star was known at the time for tweeting her strong opinions, and ABC had reportedly already contacted her on multiple occasions about her Twitter rage. The racist comment toward Valerie Jarrett proved to be the nail in the sitcom’s coffin, and for that of her character.
When The Conners premiered in 2018 sans-Roseanne Barr, it was revealed that the Conner matriarch had died of an opioid overdose. The actress spoke about her distaste for that decision at the time, and she divulged to Megyn Kelly that she took the message personally, saying it wasn’t just her TV character who died, but her personal character as well. She explained:
They just tried to kill me, and I felt like they killed my character and my character, but I thought they were sending a message over the airwaves, because they knew I had mental health issues. I thought they wanted me to kill myself, and all my friends did too. They said, ‘They’re trying to push you to suicide.’
Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, and Roseanne Barr admitted that she thinks she’s better off without her former co-stars in her life now. You can see their conversation below:
While the comedian hasn’t appeared on television since her fall from grace, she did record a standup special, Roseanne Barr: Cancel This!, in which she namechecked Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. in regard to their own controversies.
As for The Conners, the ongoing WGA writers strike has things up in the air in regards to its Season 6 premiere date, but keep an eye on the 2023 TV schedule to see all of the upcoming premieres.
