Roseanne Barr’s Interview With Sean Hannity Was Predictably Bizarre And Scattered

Roseanne Barr appeared on Hannity on Thursday night to address the tweet that got her fired from her ABC sitcom. The comedian and actress appeared to explain tweets that were called “repugnant” by ABC in May and ended a second run of her long-running sitcom named after and staring her, which was rebooted earlier this year.

That show has since been rebranded as The Connors, with the entire cast involved except Barr herself ready to . The 65-year-old actress who once posed as “Domestic Goddess Hitler” who burned “Jew cookies” for a Jewish parody magazine explained her comedy to Sean Hannity on Thursday night and why two months of apologies are enough to atone for her transgressions.

Barr was fired in May for comparing former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett to a hypothetical child had between the “Muslim Brotherhood” and Planet of the Apes. She stressed that her racist tweets were “political,” not racist, explaining that tweet is about “accountability” from Jarrett and the Obama administration and didn’t understand the outcry from people that resulted.

“I don’t understand a lot, to tell you the truth. The first thing was shock that they were saying it was racial, when it’s political. And that was a hard one to take,” Barr said. “And then everybody started saying I was racist, which is the worst thing you can call a Jewish person, especially one like me who grew up around Holocaust survivors.”

Barr talked through her reaction to the reaction to her tweet, concluding that she’s in a “middle” that is being “marginalized” by radicals on both sides of the political spectrum.

“I went into the whole thing, the whole discussion of racism and that blew my mind because so much a part of what the show I was doing was about. And I’m like, ‘Why can they not see my work?’ Barr asked. “And then I got really messed up thinking ‘This world, it seems as if words matter more than actions, but in the real life world actions matter more than words. And my actions over 30 years as an artist and a comedian, I’ve always been against the abuse of power towards all marginalized groups. But now I feel like both the left and the right have marginalized the middle, and it’s just too crazy.”

Barr made sure to brag about her brief reboot’s ratings, much like Donald Trump is wont to do. But the most awkward part of the interview came when Hannity offered Barr a hypothetical: what would she say if she could call Jarrett to potentially apologize. Confused, Barr asked if he had her number, but said she did not call because she was “afraid she’d start screaming and throw the phone down.”

She did, though, offer an apology and explained that she wants to explain the tweet’s meaning to her.

“Valerie, let’s discuss this. Don’t assume you know what I meant because I think you don’t know what I meant and I would like to make it clearer to you what I did mean.”

…

“I’m sorry that you feel harmed and hurt. I never meant that and for that I apologize.”

Barr said her kids took Twitter away from her “forever” and stressed that the incident “cost me everything,” but she never truly managed to explain in the hour-long interview exactly how the tweet isn’t racial and how she didn’t know better. Hannity asked multiple times and offered her plenty of chances to explain it, but Barr could only really characterize it as a “mistake” that she didn’t know she made until it was too late. It was, however, much more polished than the last time she tried to defend herself on camera.