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Roseanne Barr finally released her promised YouTube video explanation for her racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett. Barr’s offensive remark — in which she compared the black former Obama aide to an “ape” — caused ABC to cancel the reboot of Roseanne after just one season, despite outstanding ratings.
In a short video, only a little over a minute long, the comedian is smoking a cigarette as a producer talks to her from off camera and tries to tell her to do the video as if it’s a presidential address.
Visibly frustrated, Barr says she’s trying to talk about the Iran deal and Valerie Jarrett, which she says was what her tweet was about, before looking right at the camera and screaming, “I thought the bitch was white!”
Barr’s video was released 11 days after she initially said that she was planning on participating in a sit-down television interview.
“To my wonderful fans who I treasure and love-who have carried me these past weeks when I was 2 weak 2 carry myself: I will be doing a TV interview this week,” she tweeted on July 8. “I’ll tell u about it tomorrow!”
However, Barr backtracked the next day, revealing that a TV interview wouldn’t happen after all. “After a lot of thought, I decided that I won’t be doing any TV interviews, too stressful & untrustworthy 4 me & my fans,” she wrote on Twitter.
She continued, “I’m going to film it myself & post it on my youtube channel in the next week-the entire explanation of what happened & why! I love you all-sign up & get ready.”
So far, Barr has only spoken out about the aftermath of her racist tweet with her friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach for his eponymous podcast last month, in which she sobbed and expressed “horrible regret.” She said at the time, “I lost everything, and I regretted it before I lost everything.”
Barr, who has apologized to Jarrett, previously stated that she was on Ambien when she wrote the tweet, and also claimed she was unaware that Jarrett is black. She has also insisted that the tweet was “about anti-Semitism.”
“Rod Serling wrote Planet of The Apes. It was about anti-semitism,” Barr tweeted last month, referencing the Twilight Zone creator who penned the script for the 1968 sci-fi hit. “That is what my tweet referred to-the anti semitism of the Iran deal. Low IQ ppl can think whatever they want.”
ABC has since announced it will revive the Roseanne reboot as The Conners, without Barr being involved.
Watch Barr’s video below.
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