US comedian and actress Roseanne Barr has lashed out at her former on-screen son, Michael Fishman, after he defended the cancellation of their sitcom’s rebooted series.
Fishman played DJ Conner throughout the original nine-season run of the hit show Roseanne, appearing alongside Barr from 1988 to 1997.
The show was revived in 2018, but was cancelled after just two months on air by American TV network ABC when Barr posted what was widely interpreted as a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, an African-American former advisor to President Barack Obama.
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“Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” Barr tweeted, drawing condemnation from fellow cast members, crew and network executives for comparing a Black woman to an ape.
Barr has since claimed she was not referring to Jarrett’s race, but was criticising her for brokering a nuclear deal with Iran, which she nicknamed “planet of the apes”.
During her latest appearance on the Can’t Be Censored podcast, Barr went on an explosive tirade while addressing Fishman’s support for the TV network’s decision to cancel the series.
“He f***ing doesn’t even f***ing know what I said, even though I’ve explained it 10,000 times for nine years on the internet,” Barr said.
“He hasn’t even taken the time to listen to what I say because he’s a bigot. And he’s a brainwashed bigot,” she claimed.
In August, Fishman posted an Instagram video responding to renewed discussion about why the Roseanne revival was cancelled following Barr infamous tweet.
“The brilliant comedians help us laugh at the darkest, darkest topics,” Fishman said.
“Sadly, in this case, there was no joke. And the show was rightfully cancelled. It’s the last time I’m really gonna go into this.”
In her latest expletive-filled response, Barr said Fishman once confronted her about the controversial tweet that led to the reboot’s cancellation.
According to Barr, she angrily told Fishman to “keep my name out of your mouth” before calling him an “ignoramus and a bigot”.
She accused her former TV son of misunderstanding her original comments because they conflicted with his political beliefs, and claimed he had “no geopolitical context” to criticise what she had said.
Following the controversial cancellation, the ABC network went on to create a spin-off called The Conners.
Fishman reprised his role for the new show, which also featured original cast members John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf and Sara Gilbert, dealing with the sudden death of Barr’s character, Roseanne Conner, who was written out by dying from an accidental opioid overdose.
The spin-off ran until April 2025 after airing 93 episodes across seven seasons, however Fishman was let go from the show before the fifth season.
“And I’m glad they fired you, because I was the only reason you were ever on that show,” Barr said on Can’t Be Censored.
“They wanted to get rid of you in the reboot, and I made them take you back. F*** you, you little f***ing putz.
“When he asked me to explain it to him, when I’d already explained it 9000 times, I told him, ‘Let me explain this to you, Michael: Go and f*** yourself and stay f***ed until the day you die.
“Don’t f***ing put my name in your f***ing mouth. Shut the f*** up.
“You are an ignoramus and a bigot, and you have no idea what I said because it contradicts the Democrat party platform that you’ve been, had shoved down your throat and up your ass.”
“You think what I said about the IRGC and the Iran deal that destroyed the rights of women in Iran, which I call ‘The Planet of the Apes,’ and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is just now being exposed as to the amount of control they have in our government here and the damage they’ve done to our Constitutional rights, you have no f***ing idea of any of that, Michael. You think I said, ‘Black people look like monkeys.’”
