Roseanne Barr may have been a trend-setter in the sitcom world, but she lost the plot when she became really outspoken about controversial things.
Remember her groin grabbing and spitting following her less-than-inspiring rendition of the National Anthem at a baseball game in 1990? Or that time she got 70,000 votes in the 2012 Presidential Election under the leftist Peace and Freedom Party? Or, more recently, when she became an outspoken Trump supporter and made a tweet that many consider having been racist that got the Roseanne revival canceled and her fired. When they rebooted Roseanne with The Conners, they killed her off the show.
Yeah, Barr hasn't really done anything to help her career in recent years, but she does have some support from some unlikely people. Whitney Cummings, one of Roseanne's ex- showrunners, is not one of those people... and neither is Chuck Lorre.
But what really happened between Barr and Cummings?
Cummings Quit 'Roseanne' Weeks Before It Was Cancelled
After the Roseanne revival in 2018, the show was renewed for the 11th season. However, its co-showrunner, Cummings, was not going to be a part of it.
"Working on Roseanne was a surreal, incredible experience," Cummings wrote in her social media post announcing her exit. "Due to work commitments and my tour schedule, I’m gonna have to watch the Conners from the sidelines next season. It was an honor to work with such an incredibly talented group of actors, writers, and crew. Harvey Levin, you can stop calling my cell phone now."
There were deeper conflicts at play, though. During a Hollywood Reporter roundtable, Cummings said she "became the PC police" during her time working on the revival.
"I was the 'you can’t say that anymore' and 'now this is the word we use' one," she said. "And they were like, 'Yeah, but that’s not how people in this town at this age in this income bracket talk.' And I learned, it’s not about what we would say, it’s about what they would say."
She Left Because Of Barr's Tweets
Then, Barr posted her racist tweet, and the 13 episodes in the upcoming eleventh season were canceled. Cummings spoke about why she really left on The Daily Beast's The Last Laugh podcast a year later.
When asked how she became the showrunner for the revival, Cummings joked with a sly smile, "I just am a fan of her tweets. I just think she makes some great points. That’s going to be quoted out of context, I can see it now!"
"It made a lot of sense at the time," the comedian said about her initial decision to be the showrunner. She mainly left the show because of Barr's tweets. "I wanted her to get off Twitter. I felt like it was going to come to a head. It was like whack-a-mole."
Knowing many people wouldn't believe her, Cummings admitted she had no idea about Barr's Twitter history when she took on the job. When the revival was canceled, Cummings tried to stay out of the drama, but when a TMZ reporter asked her if she wanted to see Barr’s character killed off, she made a comment she's not proud of.
"I don’t even want to think about it," Cummings told the reporter. "Killing her would mean I’d have to think about her, and I don’t even want to do that right now. I’m too pissed off."
"That was a nightmare," she explained to The Daily Beast. "I was pissed. We all worked really hard on that show, and it’s just a shame. You put your heart and soul into something for 12 months, and it’s just for nothing.
"I grew up watching Roseanne, I loved it. I grew up poor, and that was the first show that looked like my house. It was the first show that didn’t make me feel bad about myself."
Taking on the job, especially after Trump was elected, was very intriguing to Cummings.
"There’s this huge disconnect between Hollywood writers and America," she said. "And there’s this idea among some Hollywood writers that America’s stupid. What I loved about Roseanne, it was always, just because we’re poor doesn’t mean that we’re stupid. And I have family members that are poor who live in red states, and I think a lot of people weren’t feeling seen or heard."
The writers on the show were hardly right-wingers. The writer's room included comedy legends Norm MacDonald and Wanda Sykes. As for her "PC police" comments a year earlier, Cummings said, "It was more that we just really had to be careful in terms of depicting how this family and these characters would actually talk and actually behave. And if we were going to be offensive, it was for the right reasons and on purpose."
Ultimately, they had to "get it right, so we know how the characters get it wrong." Cummings added that the revival "had the potential to be really healing and start interesting conversations." Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Cummings said she thought it was a good idea they canceled Roseanne. "It’s just a shame. I’m still too shocked and confused to even know what to even think. It’s just wildly unfortunate."
As far as we know, Cummings and Barr haven't had any contact since. Ironically though, during her time working on Roseanne, Cummings was once called down to HR after telling an intern, "Merry Christmas."
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