In an interview with USA Today this week, John Goodman said he misses his friend “Rosie real bad” despite being happy to return in “The Conners.”
“It felt great to be back, but there’s a hollow center. I miss Rosie real bad,” said Goodman.
Roseanne Barr was ousted from her own sitcom earlier this year due to a racially charged tweet targeting former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, whom she described as a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes.” Roseanne initially claimed she didn’t realize that Jarrett, who was born to parents of African-American and European descent, was black. While the tweet was racially charged, Goodman recently said he knows that Roseanne is not a racist person.
“I know for a fact that she’s not a racist,” he said, going on to imply that ABC should not have canceled her show so suddenly. “I’ll put it this way, I was surprised at the response. And that’s probably all I should say about it.”
ABC decided to kill off Roseanne’s character on the show via an opioid overdose, a decision that the actress expressed much dissatisfaction about in a statement on Twitter Tuesday night.
“That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show,” she wrote.
Keeping it cheeky, Roseanne emphatically announced, “I ain’t dead, bitches!!!”
As noted by the MRC, “The Conners” premiered to “lackluster ratings” when compared to the blowout the “Roseanne” premiere received, which drew “18.44 million viewers and had a 5.1 rating among adults 18-49.”
“The Conners” drew just 10.5 million viewers and had a 2.3 rating, managing about 55% of its precursor’s premiere.