ABC cancels Roseanne Barr’s show after star’s racist comments

JTA

(JTA) — ABC canceled the hit series “Roseanne” after its star posted racist comments on social media.

The network announced the cancellation on Tuesday after Roseanne Barr drew wide criticism for a tweet in which she mocked Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to President Barack Obama.

“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” Channing Dungey, ABC’s entertainment president, said in a statement.

Barr’s tweet mocked Jarrett, who is African-American, saying that “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”

The actress later deleted the tweet and issued an apology, saying she had made “a bad joke about her politics and her looks.”

This isn’t the first time that Barr, whose family is Jewish but who also was raised in the Mormon church, has drawn criticism for her social media usage. She has used Twitter to promote conspiracy theories and post comments criticizing transgender people. Some have also taken issue with Barr for her vocal support for President Donald Trump.

“Roseanne,” a show about a working-class American family, had achieved success in its return to network television. The original show, which ran 10 seasons in the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, hit No. 1 in the ratings.