John Goodman has finally broken his silence about the end of Roseanne.
Months after star Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet about former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett — which caused ABC to cancel her hit rebooted sitcom after just one season — the actress’ TV husband is sharing his thoughts on the scandal in a new interview.
Speaking with the U.K.’s Times for a profile published on Sunday, Goodman admitted that Barr’s offensive tweet left him “brokenhearted.” He explained, “But I thought, ‘OK, it’s just show business, I’m going to let it go.’ But I went through a period, about a month, where I was very depressed.”
The actor, who spent years playing Barr’s onscreen husband Dan Conner, added: “I’m a depressive anyway, so any excuse that I can get to lower myself, I will. But that had a great deal to do with it, more than I wanted to admit.”
Although Barr likened Jarrett to the offspring of the “Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes” in a since-deleted tweet that ignited the firestorm, Goodman insisted that the fallen star isn’t racist. “I know for a fact that she’s not a racist,” he said, implying that he was not supportive of ABC’s swift decision to cancel Roseanne. “I’ll put it this way, I was surprised at the response. And that’s probably all I should say about it.”
Asked about how ABC will handle Barr’s absence as Roseanne Conner in the network’s upcoming spinoff series, The Conners, which is set to debut in October, Goodman suggested that her TV alter ego could be killed off. “It’s an unknown,” he continued. Of his own character, he added, “I guess he’ll be mopey and sad because his wife’s dead.”
After Barr’s firing in May, her TV children reacted to her racist remark in a series of statements. Lecy Goranson, who originated the role of Becky, said that she was “devastated” by “the effects of hate speech and racism on individuals and society,” while Sara Gilbert, who plays Darlene and was the driving force behind the reboot — called Barr’s behavior “abhorrent.”
Barr attempted to explain her tweet in a bizarre YouTube video, posted in late July, in which she is seen smoking a cigarette before looking into the camera and screaming, “I thought that bitch was white!”
As has been previously reported, ABC would not consider any sort of Roseanne spinoff if it meant that Barr would receive any financial compensation. Once Barr agreed, The Conners was able to move forward — which helped hundreds of below-the-line employees keep their jobs after they were blindsided by the network’s decision to cancel the show following its star’s latest controversy. “I sent her an email and thanked her for that,” Goodman said. “I did not hear anything back, but she was going through hell at the time. And she’s still going through hell.”
The Conners is set to premiere Tuesday, Oct. 16, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
