Last February Channing Dungey was announced as the new president of the ABC Entertainment Group. Dungey’s promotion made her the first African-American person to be president of a major broadcast network.
And she’s wasted no time putting her stamp on the venerable TV network and stepping into the line of fire.
After Trump supporter and star of ABC’s Roseanne fired off a racist tweet this morning suggesting that former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett is an ape, Dungey wasted no time pulling the plug on the popular series.
Barr tweeted: “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” She then tried to defend her tweet by saying it was a joke.
“I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.” She says she plans to now leave Twitter (one can only hope for good), saying:
“It’s a joke,” she wrote in response to a CNN reporter.
Well, apparently ABC didn’t find her joke funny.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said in a statement.
And now, according to TheWrap, Viacom is pulling “Roseanne” reruns from its Paramount Network, TV Land and CMT channels. The syndication scheduling change will reportedly go into effect tomorrow.
And the fallout continued as news hit that Barr was dropped by her agency, ICM Partners.
“We are all greatly distressed by the disgraceful and unacceptable tweet from Roseanne Barr this morning,” the agency’s leadership said in an internal memo to company employees. “What she wrote is antithetical to our core values, both as individuals and as an agency. Consequently, we have notified her that we will not represent her. Effective immediately, Roseanne Barr is no longer a client