Roseanne Barr is unhappy that Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air.
The former sitcom star, whose award-winning Roseanne was canceled in 2018 after she published a racist social media post about former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, believes a "double standard" is at play in ABC lifting its suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after just five days.
"It just shows how they think. I got my whole life ruined, no forgiveness, all of my work stolen, and called a racist for time and eternity, for racially misgendering someone," she told NewsNation on Tuesday. "It's a double standard."
In the May 2018 post, Barr wrote that Jarrett, who is Black, was equivalent to "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby." Though the comedian deleted and apologized for the post hours after publishing, ABC canceled the Roseanne reboot, with former network president Channing Dungey commenting, "Roseanne's Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show."
Looking back on the time, Barr claimed that Kimmel "called me a racist even though I said repeatedly, which they repeatedly censored, that it was a mistake. I thought that the woman was a white woman from Iran." Barr pointed out that the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host "called me a racist even though he himself appeared in blackface on their network many times."
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Kimmel for comment. Kimmel did previously appear on television in blackface on numerous occasions, impersonating basketball player Karl Malone. Those appearances occurred on his former sketch comedy series The Man Show, however, which aired on Comedy Central.
"There is nothing more important to me than your respect, and I apologize to those who were genuinely hurt or offended by the makeup I wore or the words I spoke," Kimmel shared in a statement addressing the appearances in 2020.