Roseanne Barr has already revealed she’s moving to Israel when The Conners premieres this fall — and now, she’s opening up about her decision.
In a sneak peek at her Tuesday appearance on The Dr. Oz Show, Barr says she wants to get out of the U.S. to escape the new iteration of the series, which was announced after ABC axed the well-received Roseanne reboot because Barr likened former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett to an “ape” on Twitter.
“I don’t want to be around, because I’ll get drawn into a negative thing of defending myself or being angry for being mischaracterized and, you know, I don’t … I want to stay away from it,” she says. “I want to stay in a joyous, positive, happy place that I’ve worked my way to again in my life.”
Barr, who says it will be her fourth time visiting the country, adds that she hopes to brush up on her Hebrew skills while she’s there.
“I want to be able to learn [and] speak Hebrew fluently, because, you know, I read very slow,” she says. “I know the letters and I love the letters, but I want to speak it. And also I have quite a few teachers over the years that live there and I want to study.”
Barr’s move was brought up at the 2018 Emmy Awards on Monday, when co-hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che took aim at the actress during their opening monologue.
“Roseanne was canceled by herself, but picked up by white nationalists,” Che joked. “How messed up is your life that you have to go to the Middle East just to get peace of mind?”
Production on The Conners began last month. The series will focus on Sara Gilbert‘s Darlene Conner and see the return of John Goodman (Dan), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Lecy Goranson (Becky) and Michael Fishman (D.J.)
The network hasn’t revealed the fate of Barr’s character, simply announcing a 10-episode, straight to series order that will follow “the Conner family who, after a sudden turn of events, are forced to face the daily struggles of life in Lanford in a way they never have before.”
Goodman, however, recently hinted that Barr’s character will be killed off, and Barr herself has said the character will suffer a fatal opioid overdose.
