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Roseanne Barr apologizing for racist tweet
ABC star Roseanne Barr is apologizing and says she’s quitting Twitter after sending a racist and Islamophobic tweet targeting former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
In the midst of a series of tweets Tuesday morning aimed at billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, Chelsea Clinton, and Democrats generally, Barr said the former White House adviser, who is black, was a mix between the “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes.”
The “Roseanne” star was responding to another Twitter user who accused Jarrett of covering up misdeeds in the Obama administration.
Faced with backlash and calls for ABC to respond, Barr initially doubled down on her tweet, claiming that it was both a “joke” and that “Islam is not a race.”
Later Tuesday morning, Barr apologized and said her “bad joke” was in poor taste. She also deleted the tweet aimed at Jarrett and said she would leave Twitter.
The apology didn’t stop Wanda Sykes, who was a consulting producer on the show, from announcing her departure Tuesday.
“Roseanne,” which had its first run on ABC in the late-’80s to the mid-’90s, was rebooted by the network earlier this year to huge ratings.
Barr’s network, ABC, has not yet addressed the tweets.
Courtesy of Boston Globe
