Roseanne Roars Back to Public Stage, 'Tends To Believe' Michelle Obama Helped Get Her Fired
Recall how fast ABC summarily fired actress Roseanne Barr and canceled the immensely popular re-booted sitcom “Roseanne” in May 2018 after the actress had posted a message to social media that some viewed as racist.
Barr’s tweet had been aimed at former Obama White House chief adviser Valerie Jarrett, who has remained close friends with the former president and first lady. The actress is now suggesting that former first lady Michelle Obama was behind the push to immediately fire her and utterly destroy her career over the ill-advised and widely misinterpreted tweet.
Barr recently sat down for an interview with The U.K.’s Sunday Times, and the actress pulled no punches in criticizing the network for terminating her while also accusing the former first lady of being the impetus behind that network decision.
Barr said of Michell Obama: “She said, ‘This tweet is unforgivable.’ 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.”
Fox News reported that Barr had most likely referenced former ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey, who resigned from her position at ABC in November 2018 and was hired just weeks later by Netflix to work with the Obamas and their Higher Ground Productions company, among others, on original content for the popular online streaming service.
The suggestion that Michelle Obama played a role in the firing of Barr by Dungey and ABC did not just materialize out of the blue, but instead has been something of a quiet conspiracy theory that arose shortly after the controversy over Barr’s tweet had first erupted.
A piece by the American Thinker detailed how a relatively anonymous reporter and internet sleuth known as Josh Cornett had reported that an angry former first lady Obama had held a “long conversation” with Dungey and essentially demanded that Barr be fired over the nasty tweet aimed at Jarrett.
It was further added that aside from being outraged over the tweet about Jarrett, the Obamas had been perturbed by Barr’s earlier criticism of their joining Netflix to produce content.
Cornett declined to provide a source for his alleged scoop, but it must be pointed out that Barr had retweeted and replied to the accusation, and within days the conspiracy theory had gone viral on both social and mainstream media … though mostly so it could be widely denounced and dismissed.
Of course, save for an open admission by Obama or Dungey, that report is virtually impossible to ever prove, and it is worth noting that Barr really has no way to know for sure if the first lady was behind her termination from ABC or not.
That said, given the close relationship of Jarrett and the Obamas, not to mention the ideologically incestuous relationship between the entertainment industry and the political left and their cult-like devotion to the left’s iconic and favorite first family, such a circumstance can’t be ruled as being entirely out of the realm of possibility.
However, the accusation against the former first lady wasn’t the only issue Barr had with how ABC had dealt with her following the controversial tweet.
Barr also expressed anger over how the network had killed off her character with an opioid overdose and then proceeded with a failed spin-off series centered around the rest of the character’s family after the death.
“They think because they killed me it’s OK to use me, use the memory of me,” said Barr, according to The Sun. “Still mention me. It’s still my show, but they stole it. They are going to do it to other comics. I’m just the first.”
Fox pointed out that Barr’s current issue with the failed spin-off known as “The Conners” is vastly different from the initial support she had offered up for the idea in the aftermath of her being fired and the original reboot being canceled, despite stellar ratings.
At that time, Barr had announced in a statement that she had accepted an undisclosed settlement from the network and gave her blessing for the spin-off, “in order that 200 jobs of beloved cast and crew could be saved, and I wish the best for everyone involved.”
Again, there is virtually no way for Barr — or anyone else, for that matter — to know for sure whether Michelle Obama had any role to play in the decision by the former ABC executive to summarily fire Barr just hours after she had tweeted and deleted the offensive remark about Jarrett.
One thing we can say with at least some certainty is that the predominately liberal media is unlikely to waste even a moment attempting to clarify or confirm Barr’s accusation, and odds are, the suggestion will once again be dismissed as nothing more than an unfounded conspiracy theory by a former star still irked at how her career was destroyed over a single tweet.
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