Roseanne Barr hasn’t made many appearances since a racist tweet of hers caused ABC to cancel her sitcom Roseanne back in May.
But one person who believes the 65-year-old comedic actress should get a second chance is television personality Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Barr appeared on Boteach’s podcast as an interview for the Jerusalem Post on May 31, and the transcript of that interview was released on Sunday.
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Boteach said in an interview with TMZ on Monday that he felt Barr should deserve forgiveness after giving a tearful apology in the interview.
“The tweet came about because Roseanne wrote it in a spontaneous moment,” Boteach said. “And yes, we recorded this podcast in the aftermath of that tweet when there was so much controversy and she expresses so much raw emotion. I wanted to make sure that this wasn’t something that again was spontaneous. I wanted to make sure that she was very comfortable with it. The interview is extremely raw, it’s very passionate, it exposes phenomenal vulnerability and I wanted to make sure that she could reflect on it and be certain with its content.”
“I have to even say that as I conducted it with her, and she’s a good friend, it was to difficult to even have the conversation and hearing her anguish, hearing her pain, hearing her remorse,” he continued. “Which is all essential to real penitence. It’s essential to show emotion and take action to change. And to ask forgiveness of the injured party.”
He went on to pose the question of if forgiveness is even possible in the eyes of the public.
“Is forgiveness dead in America? Is it one strike and you’re out?” he asked. “Roseanne has a history of being a provocateur. She says it in the podcast that she has regularly pushed people’s buttons. But she has no history of being this out and out racist.”
Barr’s inflammatory tweet read, “Muslim brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby = vj,” which was directed at former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
During the interview Barr claimed she didn’t know Jarrett was African American.
“Valerie Jarrett, I don’t agree with her politics and I thought she was white, I did not know she was a black woman,” Barr said. “When ABC called me and said ‘What is the reason for your egregious racism?,’ I said, ‘Oh my God, it is a form of racism. I guess I didn’t know she was black, and I’ll cop to it, but I thought she was white.’”
“I’m a lot of things, a loud mouth and all that stuff. But I’m not stupid for God’s sake,” she continued. “I never would have wittingly call any black person and say they are a monkey. I just wouldn’t do that. I didn’t do that. And people think that I did that and it just kills me. I didn’t do that. And if they do think that, I’m just so sorry that I was so unclear and stupid. I’m very sorry…I have loved ones who are African American, and I just can’t stand it.”
On Thursday ABC announced it would be making a Roseanne spin-off series, The Conners, which will air during the Fall 2018 television season. The network released a statement that Barr will have no creative or financial ties to the new series and her character will be written out.
