Mo’Nique Defends Roseanne Barr for Racist Tweet 'Mistake'

Mo'Nique has come to Roseanne Barr's defense, agreeing with the former Roseanne star that her [...]

Mo'Nique has come to Roseanne Barr's defense, agreeing with the former Roseanne star that her racist tweet was a "mistake."

"We've all said and done things baby that we wish we could take back and swallow and say, 'Oh.' But when you're in the public eye, you can't and it's out there," Mo'Nique told KTLA. "My sister made a mistake and she said something I know she wishes she could take back. But what I would ask is we don't throw her away."

Mo'Nique reminded KTLA's Sam Rubin that Barr was an early supporter of hers, even going on the Mo'Nique Show when most white celebrities would not.

"I remember when I had the Mo'Nique Show, and there were big, major black superstar talent that had white representatives and they told their talent, 'That show is too black and we really don't want you to go on there,'" the Oscar-winner recalled. "But there was a white woman named Roseanne Barr that showed up for me. … And they didn't hear the conversation when the cameras wasn't rolling. ... That woman was giving me some beautiful words."

ABC fired Barr in May, after Barr sent a tweet suggesting former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett looked like the offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes characters. A month later, ABC greenlit a Barr-less Roseanne spin-off called The Conners.

Barr has apologized for the tweet and insisted it was not racist, but a political message. In a YouTube interview last week, Barr said she thought Jarrett was white.

"I'm so sorry that you thought I was racist and that you thought that my tweet was racist, because it wasn't. It was political. And I'm sorry for the misunderstanding that caused... my ill-worded tweet," Barr said to Jarrett during her interview with Sean Hannity Thursday. "And you know, I'm sorry that you feel harmed and hurt. I never meant that and for that, I apologize. I never meant to hurt anybody or say anything negative about an entire race of people, which I think 30 years of my work can attest to."

Jarrett called Barr's comments a "teaching moment." During an appearance on The View last week, she said the former sitcom star's comments are not "what keeps me up at night."

"What keeps me up at night are those families being separated at the border,. Or our children who go to school worrying about whether or not they're going to be safe and the parents dropping them off. These are the things that keep me up at night. Not a racist tweet," Jarrett said Wednesday.

The Conners will debut on ABC on Oct. 16.

Photo credit: Tommaso Boddi/WireImage/Getty Images

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