What was the racist tweet that led to Roseanne Barr's cancellation?
Executive summary
The tweet that triggered Roseanne Barr’s 2018 firing read, in her exact posted form, “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” a reference to Valerie Jarrett that many read as likening Jarrett to an ape and invoking a racist trope [1] [2]. The post—widely condemned by colleagues, advertisers and ABC—prompted the network to cancel the reboot of Roseanne within hours and set off a cascade of responses, defenses and recriminations [3] [4].
1. The tweet itself: the text and immediate meaning
At roughly 2 a.m. on May 29, 2018, Roseanne Barr posted a tweet that combined a conspiracy allegation with an explicit visual insult, writing “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” with “vj” understood to mean Valerie Jarrett; the line drew swift accusations that Barr had compared Jarrett to an ape, one of the most longstanding racist dehumanizations of Black people [1] [2].
2. Who Jarrett is and why the tweet was read as racist
Valerie Jarrett is a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama and is Black and of Iranian descent—facts noted in reporting that contextualized the post as both a conspiracy-theory claim and a racialized attack; observers pointed out that likening a Black public figure to apes invokes an explicitly racist trope with deep historical violence [2] [5].
3. The corporate and industry fallout within hours
Within hours of the tweet, ABC condemned Barr’s post as “abhorrent” and canceled the revival of Roseanne, while cast and crew publicly distanced themselves—consulting producer Wanda Sykes said she would not return, and other co-stars denounced the remarks—moves reporters described as immediate and decisive responses by the network and creative staff [3] [1] [6].
4. Barr’s apologies, defenses and disputed explanations
Barr issued apologies and later offered a set of defenses: she said the wording was “ill‑worded” and insisted she was not a racist, and she blamed Ambien and late-night posting in later interviews—claims that produced further coverage and pushback, including the manufacturer’s pointed reply that “racism is not a known side effect” [7] [5] [8].
5. How the show and industry dealt with the vacancy
After ABC’s cancellation, the network retooled the series without its star; the program returned as The Conners, which killed off Barr’s character—an outcome repeatedly described in contemporaneous coverage as the practical solution to preserve jobs and the show’s creative investment while distancing it from Barr’s conduct [9] [6].
6. Wider context and continuing disputes over intent and consequences
Reporting emphasized that Barr’s Twitter history and public pronouncements had long been controversial and that the Jarrett tweet was the proximate cause of the termination; commentators and industry figures framed the decision as a necessary enforcement of corporate values, while Barr and some supporters argued that the punishment was excessive or that she had later been unfairly judged [10] [3] [11].
7. Limits of the available reporting
The cited sources document the tweet’s text, the target and the immediate fallout, and they record Barr’s subsequent apologies and explanations; beyond those published accounts, the sources do not resolve deeper questions about Barr’s private intent, internal network deliberations beyond official statements, or legal settlement details, and therefore this account does not speculate beyond the documented public record [1] [3] [7].