Roseanne Barr Plots New Comedy Series About ‘Saving America’

Call it the Trump 2.0 effect.

Roseanne Barr, who was fired by Disney from her titular ABC show in 2018 at the height of its ratings prowess, is plotting a TV comeback. Barr tells Variety that she wrote a new comedy series with “Roseanne” and “Arli$$” alum Allan Stephan and is about to take it to market.

The new series, which will star Barr and be four to six episodes in line with the U.K. comedy format, is “a cross between ‘The Roseanne Show’ and ‘The Sopranos,’” she says, and centers on a small-town farmer in Alabama who is “saving the United States from drug gangs and China.” The protagonist dabbles in growing and selling drugs like cannabis and magic mushrooms.

“It’s silly and out there,” she says. “[It will contain] very offensive ideas and a lot of swearing. I live with my daughter and her husband and their six children on a farm. And they have goats running through their house and stuff. It’s based on my life as a farmer in Hawaii. They save America with guns, the Bible, petty crime and alcoholism. It’s kind of like the Coen brothers thing.”

In 2018, Barr referred to former Michelle Obama aide Valerie Jarrett as the offspring of the “Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes” in a Twitter reply. She apologized to Jarrett and deleted her Twitter account. But ABC took quick action by firing Barr and canceling “Roseanne,” which had just finished its first season as the No. 1 scripted primetime TV show in the 18-49 age demographic.

She hasn’t worked in the mainstream entertainment industry since, even though her longtime “Roseanne” co-star John Goodman supported her by saying, “I know for a fact that she’s not a racist.” Her new series shares DNA with her megahit series “Roseanne,” which followed a working-class family and ran from 1988-1997. It was followed by the successful 2018 revival. Barr tells Variety that her new series will follow a family with similarities to the Conners, the clan featured in her two shows.

“There’s a scene where I have to strap myself into a corset. My granddaughter helps me, and then I go into town to flirt with all the shopkeepers that are just grotesque people,” she teases. “It’s just kind of a cartoony kind of thing.”

Barr, who was dropped by her longtime agents at ICM over the tweet, says that the project will soon be shopped in Hollywood but declined to say who is selling it. 

“If Hollywood doesn’t buy it, then I’m just gonna make it myself,” she adds. “Does anybody in [Hollywood] like America or the people who watch TV? Because the people who watch TV would really like to see a show where working-class people win against the enemies of America.”

Barr says Disney cut ties with her in 2018 before a single sponsor pulled out “because of a political phone call.” She says Disney CEO Bob Iger called Jarrett and Obama and promised that the controversial star would be removed from the airwaves. (A Disney source says Iger never spoke to Obama and only talked to Jarrett after the decision was made.)

But the climate has shifted in the past few months compared to Trump’s first presidency. During Trump 1.0, Barr was among a small group of industryites who vocally supported him during his presidential run in 2016. She believes it contributed to her cancellation. (Iger later called Barr’s tweet “completely insensitive, completely disrespectful.”) This time around, many influential players in the tech and media landscape have thrown their support behind Trump, making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago or otherwise cozying up to him. Moguls including Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos were all on hand in the Capitol Rotunda when the 45^th and 47^th president was sworn in on Jan. 20, while Larry Ellison, the billionaire behind the Paramount-Skydance merger, is a longtime Trump supporter and is working closely with the president on AI efforts.

Barr says the recent presidential election results prove that viewers are eager for content that Hollywood has been loath to make. 

“Hollywood has made itself irrelevant to the American people,” she says. “If they want to survive, they should work with the new president. American people elected him in an overwhelming victory. They should get back in touch with [them] and make some money, which I don’t know if they do or not ’cause they’ve proven to be ideologues rather than [business people]. What shocks me is the fact that they prefer to lose money and then explain that to the shareholders who apparently have no problem with that.”

Barr is currently the host of “The Roseanne Barr Podcast” and has appeared as a guest on fellow comedians’ shows like “Club Random With Bill Maher.” When asked if she would consider ABC if the network was interested, she replied with an emphatic, “Fuck no.”

As for other potential Hollywood suitors, Barr isn’t so sure that one will step up.

“I don’t give a fuck either way,” she explains. “I’d like to get paid handsomely to bring another shit fucking network back from doom as I’ve done twice for ABC. But I just don’t see how they would keep their nose out of my business. We’ll see. If not, I’ll just go somewhere else and put it on my own website.”

And though she is a full-fledged MAGA adherent, she isn’t necessarily BFFs with the Trump inner circle. She felt the sting after inviting multiple members of Team Trump to appear on her podcast but found no takers. She even launched a music video with Canadian rapper Tom MacDonald two days before the inauguration titled “Daddy’s Home.” The ode to the president has notched 4.8 million views to date.

“The Trump administration regards me as a loose cannon, which I am,” she says. “I’m not a party line person for anyone or anything except myself. The Trump staff or whoever runs it, they’re a little afraid of me. I am a loudmouth comedian, so I understand it. But it really hurt my feelings. But what are you gonna do?”