‘Roseanne’ Actress Emma Rose Kenney ‘Embarrassed and Disappointed’ by Roseanne Barr

Actress Emma Kenney has revealed that she planned to quit Roseanne over Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet on Tuesday morning even before the show was canceled.

Kenney, who starred as Harris Conner-Healy in the sitcom revival, took to Twitter to vent her feelings about the eponymous star’s posts.

“I am hurt, embarrassed, and disappointed,” she wrote of Barr’s controversial tweet about Valerie Jarrett. “The racist and distasteful comments from Roseanne are inexcusable.” A few minutes later, she explained her plans to exit the show.

“As I called my manager to quit working on Roseanne, I found out the show got cancelled,” Kenney tweeted. “I feel so empowered by [Wanda Sykes], Channing Dungey and those at ABC standing up against abuse of power and lack of values. Bullies do not win. Ever.”

Roseanne was cancelled on Tuesday as a direct result of Barr’s inflammatory tweets. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Barr responded to another Twitter user espousing a conspiracy theory that Jarrett had helped cover up alleged crimes for the Obama administration.

“Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr wrote, using Jarrett’s initials. Many accused her of racism over the tweet, and she did her best to defend herself, replying “Muslims r NOT a race.”

“ISLAM is not a RACE, lefties. Islam includes EVERY RACE of people,” she added. Later, she referred to the post as a joke. She ultimately deleted the offending tweet, and issued an apology where she seemed to admit that the Planet of the Apes comparison was a racist attack.

“I apologize. I am now leaving Twitter,” she wrote, adding in a separate tweet, “I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.”

Later on in the morning, ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey announced that the Roseanne reboot was officially cancelled.

“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” read Dungey’s brief statement.

Valerie Jarrett, who was at the center of the controversy, worked in the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2017. She was the Director of the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. She was born to American parents in Shiraz, Iran, where her father ran a children’s hospital. She and her family moved back to the United States when she was seven years old.