John Goodman: ‘Roseanne’ Cancellation Broke My Heart

John Goodman and Roseanne Barr in happier times Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer August 28, 2018

Zichrona Livra-blah. John Goodman told The Times that in the upcoming “Roseanne” reboot redux, “The Connors,” the character Roseanne Connor will be killed off to accommodate the fact that Roseanne Barr was fired from the show after a racist tweet.

Welp, there’s no use crying over spilt racist venom, in our opinion. But John Goodman is sad, and that makes us sad too.

In the Times profile, he said that when the “Roseanne” reboot was cancelled, he was “broken-hearted.” He added that he tried to shake off the feeling, but, “I went through a period, about a month, where I was very depressed. I’m a depressive anyway, so any excuse that I can get to lower myself, I will. But that had a great deal to do with it, more than I wanted to admit.” He told The Times that when the network initially approached him about rebooting “Roseanne,” he told them, “I’m your boy.” During the shooting of the reboot, the cast, he says, “a team, even more than before.”

Oh, John!

Goodman, who arrived at the interview with seven dollars in his hand (he had lost his wallet) and a cell phone that he found in his own shoe, defended Barr. “I know, I know, for a fact that she’s not a racist,” he said. Only John Goodman could make defending Roseanne Barr look so pure. “I’ve never tweeted or twarted. It’s not useful for me. I’m ultra-sensitive.”

He closed out the interview by saying, “I’ve always had trouble with the…Not self-hatred, but…OK, self-hatred. There are better guys out there.”

via GIPHY

Then, maybe not willing to leave us all so down in the dumps, he finished by saying that his favorite role is still as the star of “The Big Lebowski.”

“I went to see it at a theatre here the other day and sat right in the middle,” he said. “Nobody bothered me.”

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO