Despite playing her onscreen husband for years, John Goodman isn’t entirely sure he would work with Roseanne Barr ever again.
After Roseanne Barr started garnering more controversy than ever and was kicked off of her own show – and thus earning an episode of “WTF Happened to This Celebrity?!” – many of her longtime collaborators started distancing themselves from the star, including former onscreen husband John Goodman.
Speaking to Variety at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, John Goodman said he isn’t entirely sure if he’d ever work with Roseanne again. “I don’t know. If she’d liked to… I just don’t know. I miss her…I wish her well.” He went on to defend standing up for her at the time when she was facing her harshest – albeit much-deserved – criticism. “At the time I remember going to some kind of junket where they saw the pilot, and then the interviews, and it just turned into attack. And that made me very uncomfortable with them just attacking Roseanne…Yeah, I felt bad for her. I just feel terrible about the whole thing. We had a great time. And I love her. She’s just her own person.”
Being her own person apparently meant that Roseanne felt compelled to post racist tweets, targeting former President Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett by saying it looked like “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby”. This would eventually result in spin-off series The Connerswhich revealed that Roseanne Conner had fallen victim to an opioid overdose.
While John Goodman is on the fence about working with Roseanne again, the relationship with her former onscreen daughter, Sara Gilbert, seems to be permanently damaged. Last month, Roseanne called Gilbert a backstabber, saying she had to eventually start intimidating her. “I called her up and I said, ‘You better shut your blanking mouth about me. I’m telling you, you better shut your effing mouth.’ And then she did, but, you know, my voice can be very scary.”
While he has nothing planned with Roseanne at the time, John Goodman is keeping quite busy, as The Conners has been renewed for a sixth season and his HBO comedy The Righteous Gemstones currently in its third season.
Do you think Roseanne will ever fully redeem herself? Do you think John Goodman should risk his reputation by working with Roseanne again? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.