Roseanne Barr Wants to Return to TV With ‘Offensive’ New Show With ‘A Lot of Swearing’

Roseanne Barr is plotting a return to the small screen. More than six years after ABC fired her from her Roseanne reboot, the former sitcom star, 72, told Variety that she’s working on a new comedy series about a small-town American family who “saves America with guns, the Bible, petty crime and alcoholism.”

Described as “a cross between The Roseanne Show and The Sopranos,” Barr wrote the series with Roseanne and Arli$$’s Allan Stephan. The series, which would run four to six episodes “in line with the U.K. comedy format,” centers around a farmer in Alabama who is “saving the United States from drug gangs and China.” The farmer also grows and sells drugs, including magic mushrooms and cannabis.

“It’s silly and out there,” Barr, who is also set to lead the show, said. “[It will contain] very offensive ideas and a lot of swearing. I live with my daughter and her husband and their six children on a farm. And they have goats running through their house and stuff. It’s based on my life as a farmer in Hawaii. They save America with guns, the Bible, petty crime and alcoholism. It’s kind of like the Coen brothers thing.”

She also recalled a scene where her character has “to strap myself into a corset. My granddaughter helps me, and then I go into town to flirt with all the shopkeepers that are just grotesque people. It’s just kind of a cartoony kind of thing.”

Stephan told Entertainment Weekly that that the series is “a sitcom about today. Today’s world, what the people are going through, which is something they didn’t want to do or even talk about before Trump was re-elected.” He clarified that the show is “not a Trump show by any means, but it’s certainly about people that want to survive what’s going on in the country.”

According to Barr, the untitled series is ready to be shopped for its potential home on TV or streaming. The outspoken comedian said that she is committed to bringing the show to the screen, and “if Hollywood doesn’t buy it, then I’m just gonna make it myself.”

“Does anybody in [Hollywood] like America or the people who watch TV?” she asked. “Because the people who watch TV would really like to see a show where working-class people win against the enemies of America.”

The planned show will mark Barr’s long-awaited return to TV. Once a prominent Hollywood star who rose to fame through her titular sitcom, which ran from 1988 until 1997, Barr was swept up in controversy in 2018 after she made offensive comments about former President Barack Obama’s White House advisor Valerie Jarrett. At the time, Barr was starring in a Roseanne reboot on ABC, which had just been renewed for its second season. She was fired from the show, which was canceled before being revived as The Conners, sans Barr, who has not starred on a series since.

Although Barr is hoping to return to the small screen, she’s crossing off any chance of ever working with ABC again. Asked if she’d return to the alphabet network, the actress said, “F– no.”

“I don’t give a f— either way,” she explained. “I’d like to get paid handsomely to bring another s– f–ing network back from doom as I’ve done twice for ABC. But I just don’t see how they would keep their nose out of my business. We’ll see. If not, I’ll just go somewhere else and put it on my own website.”