“I begged Ben Sherwood at ABC 2 let me apologize & make amends,” Roseanne Barr tweeted on Thursday
Roseanne Barr is continuing to explain herself after her shocking Twitter spree and Tuesday’s cancellation of her ABC sitcom Roseanne.
The actress, 65, tweeted on Thursday following a turbulent week in which she and hundreds of others lost their jobs after she made a racist remark about Valerie Jarrett, former Barack Obama advisor, on Monday.
“I begged Ben Sherwood at ABC 2 let me apologize & make amends,” Barr tweeted, referencing the Disney/ABC Television Group President.
“I begged them not to cancel the show. I told them I was willing to do anything & asked 4 help in making things right,” she continued. “I’d worked doing publicity4 them 4free for weeks, traveling, thru bronchitis. I begged4 ppls jobs.”
She continued, tweeting, “He said: what were you thinking when you did this? I said: I thought she was white, she looks like my family! He scoffed & said: “what u have done is egregious, and unforgivable.’ I begged 4 my crews jobs. Will I ever recover from this pain? omg.”
Roseanne Barr Feels ‘So Sick’ Over Costars Laurie Metcalf & John Goodman Losing Their Jobs
She also expressed her regret to actress Jayden Rey, who played Mary Connor, the daughter of DJ (Michael Fishman) and his African American wife Geena (Xosha Roquemore) on the show.
“I think I’ll b better tomorrow. The saddest part of all is 4 Jayden Rey on the show whom I grew2 love so much & am so ashamed of myself that she would ever think I do not love her bc she is African American,” Barr tweeted. “It’s the most gawd awful painful thing. I can’t let myself cave in tho.”
“I end by offering everyone involved one more apology and prayers for healing of our divided nation,” she wrote in another tweet. “Tomorrow is Shabbat and I will continue to pray that everything for everyone goes forward & ends well for all. signing off twitter for a while. love u guys!”
Barr prompted the cancellation of her show earlier this week when she likened former Jarrett to an “ape” in a since-deleted tweet. She has since claimed that she didn’t know Jarrett is black — and that she was on Ambien while tweeting.
However, her ex-husband and former Roseanne writer Tom Arnold told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Wednesday that the actress “wanted” the cancellation to happen.
“It had to happen,” he told publication. “And I am going to tell you the truth, she wanted it to happen, if you saw how her tweets escalated this weekend.”
“If it hadn’t happened yesterday, this season would have been so awful for everyone every day because she would have felt like she was [being] taken advantage [of], just like when I left the show,” Arnold said.
Barr previously apologized to the “wonderful writers (all liberal) and talented actors who lost their jobs on my show due to my stupid tweet,” and she also expressed her regret over two costars in particular: John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf.
“I just wish ABC had not thrown two of the greatest actors in the world out with me — Laurie and John,” Barr tweeted Wednesday night. “I’m so sick over this — they will never have better character actors on their network.”
Goodman — who played Barr’s on-screen husband, Dan Conner — reluctantly addressed the news Wednesday in a video taken at an auto repair shop in New Orleans obtained by Entertainment Tonight.
Explaining that he would “rather say nothing than to cause more trouble,” Goodman, 65, assured fans that “everything’s fine” with him, adding that he’s not familiar with Twitter and had no comment on the controversy.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “I don’t read it.”
On Wednesday, a source told PEOPLE that Barr is “in deep darkness and is very remorseful” following the scandal.
“She’s not intentionally hurtful,” said the insider. “They all loved each other on the Roseanne set. It really was one big happy family.”
