Roseanne Barr Gets Canceled On YouTube, Here’s Why
Roseanne Barr's comments on The Theo Von podcast has caused YouTube to pull the episode for violating community guidelines.
YouTube recently removed an episode of Theo Von’s This Weekend video podcast that featured Roseanne Barr. While talking about content platforms enforcing disinformation policies, Barr made offensive comments about the Holocaust. YouTube then removed the video after determining that the comments violated its policies on hate speech. (via Variety)
Roseanne Barr was initially speaking about the 2020 election, saying that President Biden won and that she was happy that election deniers were getting de-platformed by these companies. However, Barr followed up these comments by saying, “And nobody died in the Holocaust, either, that’s the truth,” adding, “It should happen — 6 million Jews should die right now, because they cause all the problems in the world. But it never happened.”
Roseanne Barr attempted to backtrack her comments by saying, “I’m all Jewish — 100%.” She then continued with more comments, saying, “People should be glad” that Jews “control” the entertainment industry.” The June 14 episode was then removed by YouTube on June 30. However, the episode is still currently available to stream on podcast platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
In defense of Roseanne Barr, Theo Von would later Tweet, saying that the comments were “sarcasm” and “satire.” This is not the first time Barr has made “jokes” that put her in hot water. In 2018, Barr posted a racist and offensive Tweet that would lead to ABC canceling the revival of her popular show Roseanne.
In 2018, Roseanne Barr tweeted about a former Obama aide, Valerie Jarrett, as looking like “the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby.” Jarrett is African-American and was born in Iran to American parents. ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey said at the time, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”
Quickly after Roseanne Barr’s tweet, Wanda Sykes announced that she would not return as a consulting producer on the show. Series co-star and executive producer Sara Gilbert and series showrunner Bruce Helford would also condemn Barr’s comments in their own statements. Barr ended up deleting her Tweet and apologized for the comment saying it was a “bad joke” and that she would be leaving Twitter.
If Roseanne Barr didn’t make those racist comments, it’s likely that the Roseanna revival could have gone on for a while. The show had shocking ratings when it returned, with the first season becoming the number one scripted primetime television series in the 18-49 demo for the season, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day numbers.
The season premiere also pulled in a whopping 18.4 million viewers and would an additional 27.3 million viewers in the preceding seven days, making it the seven-day lift for any show on any network.
Clearly, the decision to pull the plug on Roseanne wasn’t a numbers decision, and the tweet brought the revival to a very abrupt end. Roseanne Barr has not appeared in a new acting project since the revival’s cancellation in 2018. The YouTube episode being pulled is the current extent of the fallout from the latest controversy.
