'Roseanne' Canceled After Racist 'Ape' Tweet

ABC has pulled the plug on a scheduled 11th season of "Roseanne" after the show's namesake, Roseanne Barr, compared former Obama administration aide Valerie Jarrett to an ape during a racist political rant over Twitter. The series, which is set in the fictional Illinois town of Lanford, had just completed its inaugural revival season last week.

"Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj," Barr, an unabashed supporter of President Donald Trump, wrote in a now-deleted tweet in response to a comment posted by Jarrett, who had worked under Chicago Mayors Harold Washington and Richard Daley.

Barr told CNN that she had meant the tweet as a joke. She apologized for her remarks in a later tweet before, saying she was leaving Twitter.

As of Tuesday afternoon, ABC, which is owned by The Walt Disney Co., had removed photos associated with Barr's show from its press site, although cast bios and episode summaries were still available. The series also still had a landing page on the network's public site, with videos and other content still up.

Two women associated with the show also spoke out on Twitter against Barr and her comments. Comedian Wanda Sykes, who had been a consulting producer on the latest season of "Roseanne," said she would not be returning to the series before word of its cancellation had surfaced.

Sara Gilbert, the actress who played Barr's TV daughter Darlene since the series debuted in the late 1980s, called her co-star's comments "abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew or anyone associated with our show."

"This is incredibly sad and difficult for all of us, as we’ve created a show that we believe in, are proud of, and that audiences love — one that is separate and apart from the opinions and words of one cast member," Gilbert wrote in a follow-up tweet.

The revival season of "Roseanne," which premiered this spring, grabbed headlines for trying to play both sides of the street, with its star publicly embracing the Trump administration and claiming she wanted to show how politics and the 2016 presidential election had fractured families.

Check out Patch's "Roseanne" Recaps of the 10th season for some of the topics the show addressed this spring.

Patch will continue to update this story.

Roseanne Barr (Photo via Shutterstock)