In the wake of the Roseanne reboot’s cancellation, Roseanne Barr gave an emotional interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author, columnist and long-time friend of Barr.
Though this interview came out on Sunday, it was apparently recorded May 31, just two days after the infamous tweet in which she made racist comparisons to Obama-era White House staffer Valerie Jarrett.
In the interview with Boteach, much of which Barr was crying through, she says, “It’s really hard to say this but, I didn’t mean what they think I meant. And that’s what’s so painful. But I have to face that it hurt people. When you hurt people even unwillingly there’s no excuse. I don’t want to run off and blather on with excuses. But I apologize to anyone who thought, or felt offended and who thought that I meant something that I, in fact, did not mean. It was my own ignorance, and there’s no excuse for that ignorance.”
Later on, she clarifies that she did not know that Jarrett, whose policies Barr has strongly disagreed with (notably, the Iran Deal), was black.
Barr and Boteach spend much of the interview discussing Barr’s Jewish values and her outspoken defense and pride in her Judaism. Through this lens, Boteach attempts to exonerate his lifelong friend by citing the values Barr has always ferociously defended. But Barr comes to this conclusion on her own: “I ask people if you look at my tweet don’t defend me. I’ve done something egregious and I don’t want to be defended. I don’t want to get any more racism going from what I did, I don’t want that. I don’t want to be defended.”
This interview comes on the heels of the announcement of The Connors, a spinoff of her rebooted show, that will feature the Connors family sans the matriarch.
You can listen to Rabbi Shmuley’s podcast below, or find a transcript below.
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