Roseanne Blames Ambien for Her Racist Tweet, Has Apparently Been on Ambien Day & Night for More Than a Decade

After Trump’s second favorite TV show was cancelled yesterday, Roseanne Barr apologized for making a racist insult about former White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and announced she was leaving Twitter. (Though it wasn’t clear if she meant permanently or just for the night.) In a series of tweets–some of which have been deleted–she also blamed her behavior on Ambien.

Now, I do appreciate that she asked her supporters not to defend her words. (Of course, that might mean more–or anything at all–if her version of leaving Twitter didn’t mean retweeting dozens of messages of support, claims of “it was a joke!” and accusations about anti-conservative media bias.) But not a lot of people are buying her Ambien excuse. People have been known to do some wild stuff while on Ambien. But racism isn’t a common side effect of the sleep aid.

Even the company that makes Ambien wants you to know that this is B.S.

If Ambien doesn’t make you racist, it most definitely doesn’t make you retroactively racist for the past decade. Because this is not Roseanne’s first bigot rodeo. She’s been tweeting out racist and transphobic blather and pushing conspiracy theories for years.

And this didn’t start with Twitter, that just gave her a larger platform.

It’s her long history of outspoken bigotry that caused so many people to question the decision to give her the even bigger platform of a network sitcom. (Not to mention all the money that puts right in her pocket.) The only people who believe that Roseanne Barr made one single mistake with her tweet about Valerie Jarett, and also believe that it wasn’t racist because it was a joke, are the people Barr is already currently retweeting.

(image: Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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