Make Page Six a Preferred Source Roseanne Barr had “malice” toward the writers of her eponymous sitcom, which made her “impossible” to work with, according to legendary TV producer Chuck Lorre.
“Roseanne hated that there were writers. Fundamentally hated that other people wrote words that she would say,” Lorre, who was a writer and producer on “Roseanne” for two seasons, said on Tuesday’s episode of the “Dinner’s On Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson” podcast.
Lorre, 73, further claimed that Barr, 73, and “any writing staff” of hers had “a built-in animosity.”
“It was the premise of other people putting words in a stand-up comedian’s mouth. It’s fundamentally flawed,” he shared. “There’s very few comics that can do that.”
Lorre also noted that since Barr got famous from her comedy, she struggled with relegating power when they were making the ABC sitcom.
“She made herself a superstar based on her words, her writing,” he explained, adding, “Then transition to a television show where [you] can’t do it alone. It’s impossible. That transition was not going to happen.”
Despite all that, Lorre — who went on to create hit sitcoms like “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory” and “Mom” — explained that he wasn’t willing to quit “Roseanne” since he was so early in his career.
“I navigated because I’d had, I don’t know, 15, 20 years of poverty and health issues and all sorts of stuff, and I was not going to go back,” Lorre said. “Under no circumstances was I going to go back to scrambling to pay the rent.”
“That is why I put up with it,” he added. “60, 70-hour weeks every week.”
Page Six has reached out to Barr’s rep for comment.
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Barr’s hit sitcom originally ran on ABC from 1988 to 1997, and was revived by the network in 2018.
However, the reboot was canceled just two months after it premiered due to Barr going on a racial rant against former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
ABC decided to keep the franchise alive with “The Conners,” which was a direct continuation of “Roseanne,” without Barr. It aired for seven seasons until 2025.
In 2011, Barr claimed in a blog post that she “fired” Lorre from the sitcom “for being a big drunk on my show.”
She also said Lorre’s “lines could choke a f—ing horse, and render any actor who recites them stone cold soul dead.”
The following year, Lorre told the Archive of American Television that the sitcom “was a very volatile environment,” and that Barr “just hated” one of his scripts.
Barr recently had a viral clash with her former TV son, Michael Fishman, who “vehemently” condemned her racist tweets that got the sitcom canceled.
She labeled Fishman, 44, a “brainwashed bigot” and claimed she was the only reason he was brought back for the “Roseanne” reboot.
“They wanted to get rid of you in the reboot and I made them take you back. F—k you, you little f—king putz,” she said.
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