ABC kills off ‘Roseanne’ character with an opioid overdose and that works for us
Roseanne Barr took her parting shots at ABC by giving up a major show spoiler ahead of the upcoming Conners spinoff premiere.
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Barr blabbed to Brandon Straka on his YouTube show “Walk Away,” and revealed that her character would die by way of an opioid drug overdose.
“Oh ya, they killed her,” she said. “They have her die of an opioid overdose.”
That’s a pretty big reveal given the network has barely shown more than a snippet of a commercial teasing about what would come next for the cast in the new series.
Barr seemed a bit pissed knowing that her TV death puts the final nail in the coffin of any possibility of her returning to the show.
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” Barr admitted. “It’s done. It’s over.” She also called the storyline of her death disrespectful to her faithful fans “who loved that family” and were invested in the Roseanne character.
ABC has greenlit The Conners, a 10-episode spinoff that will feature the same family (minus, of course, Barr) and premiere in the fall, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
THR reports the comedy will follow the daily struggles and travails of the Conner family who, after a sudden turn of events, are forced to juggle life in ways they never have before.
The show will star John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman—basically, everyone but Roseanne Barr. And ABC stressed in making its announcement on Thursday that Barr has nothing to do with the new show, financially or creatively. Barr will retain rights to the Roseanne Conner character.
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ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey fired Barr for her malicious tweets suggesting that former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett is an ape.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” Dungey said in a statement.
Jarrett, who could not have been blamed for reading Barr for filth after what she did, took the high road when asked about the offensive tweets during a subsequent appearance on an MSNBC town hall.
“I think we have to turn it into a teaching moment,” Jarrett said “I’m fine. I’m worried about all the people out there who don’t have a circle of friends and followers who come right to their defense–the person who’s walking down the street minding their own business and they see somebody cling to their purse or walk across the street. Or every black parent I know who has a boy who has to sit down and have a conversation, ‘the talk’ as we call it. Those ordinary examples of racism that happen every single day.”
The Conners will air on ABC October 16 at 8/7c.
