Roseanne Barr says she felt betrayed when John Goodman, her costar on the hit ’90s sitcom, didn’t tell her he had decided to scale back his appearances on Roseanne in its last season.
“I don’t think I heard it from his agent, I think I heard it from the producers of the show actually [that he didn’t] want to be on the show anymore,” the 73-year-old explained on an episode of The Roseanne Barr Podcast. “I think they said he’ll do six of the 24 or something like that.”
Although she felt like she’d been stabbed in the back, she insisted she still kept things “professional” when they were on the set together.
The two stars portrayed husband and wife Dan and Roseanne Conner on the show, which ran for nine seasons on ABC. But in season 9, the actor appeared on only 12 of the 24 episodes. He returned for the revival, which began airing in 2018.
Roseanne says she felt let down that her castmates, and especially John, didn’t stand up for her during her various scuffles with the show’s execs.
“None of them supported me in any of the s**t I went through the first show and I just had to sweep it aside and do the show,” she says
“I kind of learned to not speak to anybody on the set when we were filming in a one-to-one personal thing. When we went to work, I was always the character. That’s even when I’d break to go get a cup of coffee, I was still the character.”
The reboot was canceled just months after its successful return, following Roseanne’s offensive tweet about former Obama administration advisor Valerie Jarrett. It was then retooled and rebranded without Roseanne as The Conners — audiences were told her character had died of an opioid overdose. The sitcom ran for seven seasons and starred John and many other members of the original cast.