As an actress, comedian, writer and ’90s TV mom, in no particular order, Roseanne Barr has led a life in the spotlight, gaining fame for her crass humor and outspokenness in the past… and for taking the cancel culture mob head on.
She saw wild success with the namesake TV sitcom “Roseanne,” resonating with blue-collar American families during its initial run from 1988 to 1997 and its brief revival just shy of two months in 2018 until Barr made an allegedly racist tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett and her decades-long Hollywood career came to a crashing halt.
But, before the world knew her, who was Roseanne Barr? Fox Nation is giving the comedian a chance to uncancel herself and tell the world who she really is.
Born to a Jewish family – a bookkeeper mother and a salesman father, along with three younger siblings – in solidly-Mormon Salt Lake City, Utah, it was her father, Jerome, that helped sow the seeds of Barr’s love for comedy.
Roseanne Barr Visits “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on April 30, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for NBC)
“Roseanne learned to appreciate the art of stand-up by watching comedians on television by her father’s side,” Tom Shillue said, narrating the Fox Nation special “Who is Roseanne Barr?”
Barr’s father particularly adored Lenny Bruce, the notoriously raw, unfiltered and critical comic, so counter-cultural he was convicted in an obscenity trial in 1964. Barr would later face her own trial of sorts when cancel culture confronted her over the Jarrett tweet in 2018, leading her to be blacklisted from Hollywood and, in her own words, leaving her no space to “apologize” or explain what had happened.
Roseanne Barr makes her comedic comeback in Monday’s Fox Nation special showcasing her standup routine. (Fox Nation/Fox News)
When she was 16, however, Barr faced a different type of hurdle when a tragic car accident left her with a traumatic brain injury.
“The hood ornament of the car was embedded in her skull. She said that her body died. She said she was never the same. It changed her forever,” FOX Business anchor Kennedy said.
As the Fox Nation special explored, Barr trod the rocky waters of depression, spending time in a state-run mental hospital in the months that followed.
Two years later, at 18, she moved to Colorado, met her first husband, then moved to Denver and became a waitress.
“This was her first job where she found she was getting laughs,” Shillue said.
Barr ventured into stand-up soon after, and, with the help of her sister Geraldine, a star was born.
“It wasn’t until her sister, Geraldine, who was also her manager, encouraged her to lean into her domestic-goddess persona, that things really started to take off,” Shillue continued.
Kennedy said Barr used comedy as a way to satirize her everyday life, the “B.S. onslaught of propaganda” coming from every direction. The relatability allowed her to shine.
When Barr went west to audition for The Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore in Los Angeles, she got her big break.
“With Roseanne, I could just see her [Shore’s] jaw hitting the table,” comedian Michael Loftus said, adding, “She goes, ‘OK, so you immediately go on to the main stage.’”
“She saw something in this woman [Barr]. She knew she was going to kill. And she did,” Kennedy said.
“I did five minutes for Mitzi Shore at The Comedy Store. And that very night, somebody from George Schlatter’s office was in the audience. And he was doing a show called “Funny,” about women. And so I was cast in that show the very night that I first stepped foot on stage in Los Angeles,” Barr herself said.
“And during rehearsal of that show, ‘The Tonight Show’ came and put me on. So it was like, wow. It was instantaneous,” she added.
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