Sara Gilbert has been estranged from Roseanne Barr for more than a year, but she says she still has loving feelings for her TV mom. The Conners star talked to USA Today about moving on with the story of the Conner clan without its longtime leading lady after Barr was fired from her own show over a Twitter scandal last year.
Gilbert, who played Darlene Conner on Roseanne , made headlines last year after she called Barr’s offensive comments aimed at Obama presidential aide Valerie Jarrett “abhorrent.” Barr fired back to accuse Gilbert of destroying her show and her life with that one tweet. The Roseanne star also blasted producers of The Conners spinoff — Gilbert has an executive producer credit on the show — for killing off her iconic sitcom character via an opioid overdose instead of letting her depart the show as a hero.
Now, Gilbert has a message for Barr, despite their lengthy estrangement.
“I have warm feelings for Roseanne, and I will always care about her and love her and hope that she’s happy.”
But Barr is far from happy with her TV daughter. As The Inquisitr reporter, the former ABC star recently said doesn’t see herself talking to Gilbert or any of her former Roseanne co-stars ever again.
“When somebody just doesn’t care how their actions affect you, what’s there to talk about?” Barr noted.
Barr told DailyMailTV she thinks ABC used her tweet as “an excuse to steal [her] life’s work,” and she hinted that her firing was punishment for being a vocal Trump supporter. Barr also pointed to Gilbert’s tweet about her “abhorrent” comments for sealing her fate on Roseanne , the sitcom she starred in since 1988.
“That’s the tweet that got the show canceled,” Barr said.
Barr previously told The Wa shington Pos t that Gilbert “destroyed the show and my life with that tweet.”
“She will never get enough until she consumes my liver with a fine Chianti,” she said of the TV daughter she has known for more than 30 years.
Gilbert has been vocal about the fact that it was hard for the cast to move on to The Conners without Roseanne. The star told USA Today that The Conners writing staff and production team want to honor the original show.
The Conners has followed the family’s struggles in the aftermath of Roseanne’s death. But in real life, the pain is still very real.
The Conners returns to ABC for its second season on Tuesday, September 24.
