John Goodman Reflects on His Relationship with Roseanne Barr, Revealing Years of Silence
The “Righteous Gemstones” star, 73, shared in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter that he hasn’t spoken to Roseanne Barr, 72, in “about seven or eight years.”
“I’d rather doubt if she wants to talk to me,” he admitted.
The ABC sitcom returned for a 10th season in 2018, but the revival was canceled before a planned 11th season after Barr posted several controversial tweets — including one comparing former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett to an ape.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey announced at the time.
Barr later claimed that “God told me” to send the racist 2018 tweet that ultimately derailed her career.
Despite that, Goodman remembers his time with the comedian on the original run of “Roseanne” fondly.
“We hit it off from jump street,” he recalled. “She made me laugh, and I made her laugh, and wow, it was so much fun.”
“We’d get so many viewers for the show back then — 20, 30 million people,” Goodman added. “Things are so different now, but it was a special time.”
After “Roseanne” was canceled in May 2018, ABC launched a spinoff series titled “The Conners.”
The spinoff featured Goodman (Dan Conner), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Sara Gilbert (Darlene), and others reprising their “Roseanne” roles. “The Conners” aired for seven seasons, from 2018 to 2025.
Barr’s character was written off after suffering an opioid overdose. She later claimed that the show’s producers asked her to guest star on “The Conners” as a ghost, but she declined.
“They called me and asked if I would like to come back as a guest star,” she said in her documentary Roseanne Barr Is America. “You’re coming back as a ghost.”
“You’re asking me to come back to the show that you f–ing stole from me and killed my ass, and now you want me to show up because you got s–t f–ing ratings and play a ghost,” Barr added.
Executive producer Bruce Rasmussen told The Post that Goodman’s tearful “goodbyes” weren’t scripted, and showrunner Bruce Helford revealed the heartfelt final scene was Goodman’s idea.
“He had pitched that,” Helford said. “It was his idea.”
After wrapping up “The Conners” in April and “The Righteous Gemstones” in May, Goodman began working on a new movie titled The Revenant alongside Tom Cruise.
However, Goodman was sidelined for two months starting in March after fracturing his hip in a shocking on-set injury.
“It was a real accident,” Goodman told THR on Friday. “I was wearing stocking feet, like I had been for the last week and a half. I was passing Tom, and my legs just went out from under me. I went parallel to the ground and landed on my hip.”
“I tried to get back up, and when I couldn’t, I started fearing the worst,” he added. “I didn’t know I had fractured it until we got X-rays.”
Luckily, the “Big Lebowski” star has nearly fully recovered from the shocking on-set accident in London earlier this year.
“So far, so good,” he said. “Unfortunately, I was down for about a month where I couldn’t do anything, and it was driving me nuts.”
