What’s Happening with Roseanne Barr?? She’s Back With a New Show on Fox Nation

By: Fern Sidman

Those television sitcom aficionados out there of a certain age will surely remember the ultimate comedienne, actress and writer, Roseanne Barr. As the middle class TV mom in the eponymously named “Roseanne” half hour comedy show on ABC that appeared during the 1990s, Barr has led a life in the spotlight. She has gained fame for her crass humor and outspokenness in the past and for taking the cancel culture mob head on, according to an article on the Fox News web site.

For those Roseanne fans out there who thought that her career in comedy was moribund when the reboot of her Roseanne show was cancelled in 2018 because of a tweet she posted about Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett, take comfort. Now Roseanne has returned to the spotlight in a new standup comedy routine aptly called “Cancel This!” that appeared on Fox Nation on Monday.

Roseanne’s wildly successful TV sitcom that resonated with blue collar families all over America, ran on ABC from 1988-1997 and then thereafter in reruns. When Barr was asked to reprise her role in 2018, the show was also quite successful as it depicted Roseanne’s TV family many years later. She was still the wife of Dan Connor (John Goodman), but always her own, independently spirited woman, and the mother of her three TV kids (all grown up) and had even become a grandma as well.

Only a few months into the reboot, Barr posted a tweet that was considered by some as allegedly racist about Valerie Jarrett. As a result, her decades-long Hollywood career came to a crashing halt, Fox News reported.

As to the allegation of racism that was attributed to Barr, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only did Barr offer her sincere and heartfelt apologies but her career has come to represent one that stands in staunch diametric opposition to racism in all its egregious manifestations.

Politically, Barr had once associated with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and was closely affiliated with the ultra-left wing Green party. Throughout the trajectory of her life, Barr has never harbored animus towards or practiced discrimination in any manner towards people of color or any minority, religion or nationality.

Nowadays, Barr might be considered a political centrist or perhaps right of center as she has been quite vocal about her strong distaste for the “woke” culture that has engulfed America. Barr has boldly stood up to the cancel culture phenomenon and has never shied away from expressing her views and perspectives on all aspects of life in America.

Her brash honesty and forthrightness has won her over her old fans as well as a whole new generation of those who appreciate Barr’s unique humor as well as her insightful political and social commentary.

But, before the world knew her, who was Roseanne Barr?  On her new program on Fox Nation, people will get clued into the real Roseanne and will be afforded the opportunity to get reacquainted with this enormously talented comedienne whose life was totally trashed due to those in the “deep state” that wished to silence her.

Born to a Jewish family – a bookkeeper mother and a salesman father, along with three younger siblings – in solidly-Mormon Salt Lake City, Utah, it was her father, Jerome, that helped sow the seeds of Barr’s love for comedy, Fox News reported.

Barr identifies strongly as a proud Jew and has visited Israel on several occasions. Coming to the frightening realization that the insidious nature of anti-Semitism has seen a dramatic escalation and that the palpable animus towards Israel has become endemic on America’s streets, college campuses and especially in the mainstream media, Barr has appeared publicly with veteran media personality, Rabbi Shmuly Boteach on many occasions and has come to embrace her Jewish heritage.

As to her comedic career, it began when she was a child, having learned to appreciate all forms of humor from her father. Tom Shillue who narrates the Fox Nation special said, “Roseanne learned to appreciate the art of stand-up by watching comedians on television by her father’s side.”

Barr’s father particularly adored Lenny Bruce, the notoriously raw, unfiltered and critical comic, so counter-cultural he was convicted in an obscenity trial in 1964, Fox News reported. Barr would later face her own trial of sorts when the axe fell on her reboot in 2018 and she was essentially blackballed from the entertainment industry in Hollywood and elsewhere.

In her own words, because of the dominance of the cancel culture movement, this left Barr with no space to “apologize” or explain what had actually happened before she was summarily thrown to the wolves.

When she was 16, however, Barr faced a different type of hurdle when a tragic car accident left her with a traumatic brain injury, as was reported by Fox News.

“The hood ornament of the car was embedded in her skull. She said that her body died. She said she was never the same. It changed her forever,” FOX Business anchor Lisa Kennedy said.

As the Fox Nation special explored, Barr trod the rocky waters of depression, spending time in a state-run mental hospital in the months that followed.  The Fox report said that two years later, at 18, she moved to Colorado, met her first husband, then moved to Denver and became a waitress.

“This was her first job where she found she was getting laughs,” Shillue said, as was reported by Fox News. Barr ventured into stand-up soon after, and, with the help of her sister Geraldine, a star was born.

“It wasn’t until her sister, Geraldine, who was also her manager, encouraged her to lean into her domestic-goddess persona, that things really started to take off,” Shillue continued, the Fox News report indicated.

Kennedy said Barr used comedy as a way to satirize her everyday life, the “B.S. onslaught of propaganda” coming from every direction. The relatability allowed her to shine.”

When Barr went west to audition for The Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore in Los Angeles, she got her big break, Fox News reported. “With Roseanne, I could just see her [Shore’s] jaw hitting the table,” comedian Michael Loftus said, adding, “She goes, ‘OK, so you immediately go on to the main stage.’”

“She saw something in this woman [Barr]. She knew she was going to kill. And she did,” Kennedy said.

“I did five minutes for Mitzi Shore at The Comedy Store. And that very night, somebody from George Schlatter’s office was in the audience. And he was doing a show called “Funny,” about women. And so I was cast in that show the very night that I first stepped foot on stage in Los Angeles,” Barr herself said, as was reported by Fox News.

“And during rehearsal of that show, ‘The Tonight Show’ came and put me on. So it was like, wow. It was instantaneous,” she added.