Roseanne Barr sat down with the second part of her interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, talking a bit about the spinoff to Roseanne and what she received in return to allow the show to return. According to The Washington Post, Barr claims that she did not want anything but the chance to step away and let the show to continue.
She started by once again distancing herself from the tweet that caused the cancellation, telling Boteach that she’s “not a racist. I’m an idiot.” She then talked about signing off on the spinoff and her motivation for allowing things to move forward:
“I didn’t ask to be paid off,” she said. “I asked for nothing, and I just stepped away … because that is penance. I put a lot of thought into it.”
“I thought signing off of my own life’s work and asking for nothing in return, I thought that was a penance,” she added. “Sometimes you ask people what do you think should be done to you knowing what you’ve done wrong, and it seems that people always know what should be done to them. I just knew that was the right thing, and I want to do the right thing because I’ve lived my life, most part of it, to do the right thing for all people, not just Jews.”
Barr has not hidden her desires to help the cast and crew of the show and indicated some of that in the interview, highlighting the actress who played her granddaughter on the show as one of the people to influence her decision to just walk away according to WaPo:
“I was very upset about hurting things that I care about and hurting people that I care about,” she said. “Specifically, the little girl who played my granddaughter. She is African American, and she loved me and I loved her.”
“I did not want her, I did not want her to not have a job because she’s great. I did not want her to think badly of Jewish people, and me specifically,” she added. “I wanted Jayden, specifically, to have her job. Because I love her. I did not what her to suffer because of me.”
As for the subject of the controversial tweet, Barr says she wants to speak with former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett eventually but hasn’t found “the right words” yet.
(Via Washington Post)
