Many people have been asking about BUST’s position on the cancellation of Roseanne in the wake of Roseanne Barr’s racist tweets about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. Our response is that we’re saddened by Barr’s tweets but not surprised, and we think canceling the show was the right thing to do.
This is a painful process to observe because we had a deep love and respect for Barr for so many years. Most of BUST’s editors were big fans of the original run of Roseanne, and we were thrilled when, in 2012, she became our advice columnist. However, as a result of Barr’s increasingly prejudiced statements online—specifically her transphobic tweets—we parted ways with her in 2013. She had become a very different person than the outspoken feminist advocate we had looked up to for so long.
It was with a nostalgic nod to our previous relationship that we ran a “Pop Quiz” in our Feb/March 2018 issue celebrating the return of Roseanne because we hoped this would be a new chapter in her life as a public figure, perhaps one more reminiscent of the version that made us love her in the first place.
Obviously, our optimism was misplaced, and we regret that coverage of her and the discomfort it caused many of our readers. Barr’s recent racist tweets are just the latest in a long line of bigoted, racist, transphobic, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic statements she’s made. We want to make it clear to BUST readers: We do not support her.
Published May 31, 2018
photo credit: Roseanne/ABC
