Roseanne Barr Slams, Forgives Turncoat Co-Stars: Toto

One of the lesser discussed angles of Roseanne Barr’s cancelation is back in the news.

Not only did ABC fire the sitcom superstar from her own show in 2018 following one awful, racially charged Tweet, it kept her co-stars on the network payroll and rebooted the show without its titular head.

How could those actors, many of whom became rich and famous thanks to Barr’s original vision, swallow hard and ignore how ABC erased the comic from her own show? Hollywood is a cutthroat business, but didn’t they feel loyalty to Barr?

Ask John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Michael Fishman and Alicia Goranson. They all worked with Barr during the show’s original run (1988-1997) and joined both the “Roseanne” reboot and “The Conners,” the show created after Barr’s dismissal.

Goodman was a certified star back in 1988, coming off appearances in "Raising Arizona," "The Big Easy" and "Revenge of the Nerds." Gilbert, Fishman and Goranson had few major credits prior to "Roseanne."

Now, Barr is addressing that state of affairs in a new L.A. Times interview. The chat is timed with the release of “Roseanne Barr: Cancel This!” It’s Barr’s comeback special, airing exclusively at Fox Nation.

Barr previously addressed her feelings toward Gilbert, who spoke out aggressively against Barr following the Tweet, in a 2019 interview with The Washington Post.


“ destroyed the show and my life with that tweet… she will never get enough until she consumes my liver with a fine Chianti.”

Pure Barr. Cutting with a side order of humor.

The most recent interview finds Barr describing how Cancel Culture hit her harder than anyone else in Hollywood, and why she’s still puzzled by her co-star’s betrayal.


“I’m the only person who’s lost everything, whose life’s work was stolen, stolen by people who I thought loved me … There was no one in Hollywood really defending me publicly.”

The exception, according to Barr? Actor/comedienne Mo’Nique.

The LA Times asked Barr if she felt “betrayed” by her co-stars, who happily went on to shoot “The Conners” over multiple seasons after her iconic character got killed off.


“I don’t know why they did what they did. I’m not like them. I realized that. I can’t believe what they did, with all the pain that I went through to bring the show back. And it didn’t faze them to murder my character, either. They s*** on my contribution to television and the show itself. But I forgive everybody. I started thinking that God took me out there to save me. And once I started thinking that way, I was, like a lot better off.”

J.K. Rowling can sympathize with Barr.

The formerly broke scribe became a billionaire from creating the Harry Potter universe. Rowling not only coaxed countless children to read with her fantasy yarns but made the stars of the film franchise inspired by her books rich and famous.

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, who played Harry, Hermione and Ron, respectively, emerged with robust acting careers after the franchise capped with the eighth and final installment.

And how did the trio pay Rowling back? They threw her under the woke bus when the activist trans community decried Rowling’s thoughts on the subject. The author declared her love for trans women in 2020 but suggested fully embracing the far-Left’s line on trans issues meant erasing womanhood, and that was something she refused.

For that she’s been Cancel Culture’s public enemy no. 1, with no help from her Potter stars.

Both Barr and Rowling have enough money to survive their respective cancellations. Each must be forever haunted by how colleagues who owe their careers to them stabbed them in the professional back.

Written by
Christian Toto is an award-winning film critic, journalist and founder of HollywoodInToto.com, the Right Take on Entertainment. He’s the author of “Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul” and a lifelong Yankees fan. Toto lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife, two sons and too many chickens. Follow Christian on Twitter at https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto