The Megyn Kelly Show - 20230517_roseanne-barr-on-toxic-hollywood-betrayals-and-sur

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May 17, 2023 - The Megyn Kelly Show

01:36:18

20230517_roseanne-barr-on-toxic-hollywood-betrayals-and-sur

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Welcome to Being a Public Figure 00:13:57
	Sommani, for bland big beef burgers.
	Order, you have principal stores from the past.
	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	I'm so excited to actually have her on.
	I've never interviewed her.
	You know that this is a person who shattered stereotypes of motherhood and femininity and was the voice of America's working class for years on her hugely successful show.
	We watched it religiously in my family, and I'm a huge fan.
	We're going to dive into her life, including some bumps along the way and what she's doing now.
	Always funny, sometimes controversial, and never boring.
	Roseanne joins me in just a minute, but wanted to begin with this breaking news about the Duchess of Duplicity.
	Megan Markle and Prince Harry say that they were in a near-catastrophic car chase involving paparazzi in New York City last night.
	Near catastrophic.
	What does that mean?
	I mean, near catastrophic is what we all have every time we look down to change the radio while we're driving our cars or engage in the stupidity of checking a text or our phones while we're driving.
	That's near catastrophic.
	It is.
	Anything could happen with anybody on the road around your car.
	It was near catastrophic, you see.
	What they say, this is per CNN, is they were involved in a near-catastrophic car chase involving PAPS last night, Tuesday, according to their spokesperson.
	Have yet to hear from anyone in the NYPD on any of this.
	The couple were followed by a swarm of paparazzi, but there was no car accident, according to a law enforcement source.
	So a law enforcement source is saying no car accident at all, but there were paparazzi there.
	Okay, this night in New York.
	Ask any person of interest or who's a public person.
	It's happened to me.
	I've seen it happen to others.
	I was at a restaurant, Nobu, one time when it was like you would have thought that the actual Queen of England was there.
	And in fact, it turned out to be Kendall Jenner.
	Or no, the other Jenner.
	The other one.
	What?
	Kylie, Kylie Jenner.
	I guarantee she had more people following her than these two did.
	The incident happened after Harry accompanied Megan to the Women of Vision Awards held at the city's Ziegfeld Ballroom.
	They were traveling also with Megan's mother, Doria Raglan.
	Spokesperson for the couple said last night the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Mrs. Raglan were involved in this near-catastrophic chess at the hands of a ring, a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi.
	The relentless pursuit lasting over two hours resulted in multiple near collisions.
	Again, no actual involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians, and two NYPD officers who were apparently there to protect the couple.
	By the way, they are probably from, I'm told by law enforcement, from the Intel division within the NYPD, which is sort of like the Secret Service and will sometimes go to protect VIPs in town for events like this.
	The statement said the couple understand that while being a public figure comes with a level of interest from the public, it should never come at the cost of anyone's safety.
	And now they want to discourage against dissemination of the images, given the ways in which they were obtained, because they encourage a highly intrusive practice that is dangerous to all involved.
	Well, sorry, you two, but you're in America now.
	And in America, the press has the right to photograph you when you're in a public place or on the streets or leaving a place like the Ziegfield Theater.
	That's the way it works here.
	And it's not pleasant.
	I've been followed as well, but it's part of life in this country where we still have freedom of the press.
	You don't like it?
	Go back home.
	For the love of God, please go back home, Harry.
	Take your wife with you.
	I don't know how we got saddled with you to begin with.
	So now they come out and say to TMZ that what happened was they got in their black car, their black SUV, and then they switched cars.
	They got into a New York City taxi to try to fool, I guess, the PAPS that they were still in the SUV.
	But no, in fact, here's video that TMZ just posted of them in the taxi.
	And you can see the paparazzi lights actually photographing the two.
	Okay, this is what happens when you are a star and you're whizzing around New York.
	I mean, this is nothing extraordinary for a night in NYC.
	What exactly happened that made it sound so harrowing for them?
	We don't know.
	This is what CNN reports.
	Paparazzi on scooters and bikes zoomed down the sidewalk to keep up with them, according to an unnamed source.
	Well, I look forward to seeing the actual video of that.
	Could have happened, but more than likely, that would be really tough to do in New York City's Times Square, which is where they were leaving from.
	And I'll tell you one other thing that doesn't check out about their story.
	There is no way of having a two-hour car chase in New York City in Manhattan.
	There just isn't.
	There are too many stop signs.
	There are too many red lights.
	There is too much foot traffic.
	There is too much actual traffic.
	And there's just, it's impossible to be in a car chase in this borough for two hours.
	So exactly how did that happen?
	It would have happened out of choice.
	The couple must have been willing participants to some extent because there are hundreds of places to pull over and get to, quote, safety, which is what they claim they wanted.
	Right?
	So I've got questions in particular because they have a history of lying, as you know, and even of exaggerating their alleged car chases.
	Who could forget this scene from their Netflix special where they were urging one another to remember safety first, safety first, after one guy on a Vespa was following them, allegedly?
	Do we have that pap on the scooter again?
	Yes, ma'am.
	Oh, we do, right?
	Same guy?
	Same guy.
	Oh, my God.
	Watched him going to this park and is going to be with us.
	Yes, sir.
	He was just ahead.
	There's a lot of people who think they've got such a problem with paparazzi.
	Yeah, those guys in the basement of the building, too, as we were doing that walk, they were recording too, just so you're aware.
	Back in my mom's days, it was physical harassment.
	You know, cameras in your face, following you, chasing you.
	She's following us.
	This path.
	Worst case scenario, so safety first.
	Worst case scenario, we're going from one garage to another.
	Like, it's nothing in the world.
	Safety first.
	Okay.
	Yes, right.
	With the one guy in a Vespa.
	So they have a history of exaggerating the danger they were allegedly in.
	Remember when she tried to lead us to believe that her son Archie was basically in a fire when they were on that overseas tour?
	And it turned out one heater in a room that Archie had been in, but was no longer started smoking.
	The child was nowhere near it and was never in danger.
	So she's got a history here.
	Let's not even talk about the Oprah interview.
	Online, people are calling them the Jussie Smolletts of New York City.
	Other people are saying, call Oprah, call Oprah right away.
	Talk about.
	Let me tell you about something.
	Most of us who are public figures go through something like this multiple times, and we don't run to RPR agents and have them release a statement playing the victim.
	My safety was in danger.
	It must stop.
	It has to stop.
	All right.
	And I've never revealed this story before, but I will because of what we're seeing here.
	It was right after I left NBC.
	I was very much in the news.
	The paparazzi were all over me.
	Well, unfortunately, I found out that I had a small basal cell carcinoba on my left temple.
	It was a nothing.
	But as you know, if you've ever had one of these things, you have to get the Mohs procedure to get it off.
	And I went into the dermatologist to get it off.
	And then I was going to go across town because they said, since it's your face, you should have a plastic surgeon stitch it up, right?
	And I did it.
	It turned out beautifully.
	You wouldn't even know.
	By the way, get your skin care checks just to make sure these are things that are not that big a deal, but if you ignore them, they can become one.
	So I went in to the guy's office who was doing the Mohs procedure.
	I left.
	And now I've got like a bandage on my left temple.
	And I'm going over to the plastic surgeon's office to have it stitched up.
	And sure enough, there's a couple of paparazzi following me.
	And I don't particularly want to be photographed with my left temple bleeding, going into a plastic surgeon's because everybody's going to be like, she's having plastic surgery.
	She's off the air.
	That wasn't it at all.
	I had a little skin cancer, which I also didn't think was anybody's business.
	So I called ahead to the surgeon's office.
	I say, hey, I'm coming in.
	I'm being followed.
	You know, is there like a private entrance or what?
	There's like, no, there's no private entrance.
	But, you know, we'll have a guard out there to help you get in.
	Like, okay, fine.
	So I think out of, you know, good spirits, the guy in an effort to like protect me from the paparazzi, but really just call more attention to me, comes outside holding this huge red umbrella, this big umbrella.
	And it's sunny.
	And he's like shepherding me.
	And I'm like, oh my God, this is like not what I wanted, but whatever.
	Let's just get inside.
	And the paparazzi stops in the middle street.
	They run.
	The guy dives down.
	He's under my umbrella and he's taking photographs from under the umbrella.
	And I'm like, oh my God, I've got this thing on the side of my face.
	She couldn't really see because of my hair, but I went in.
	Sure enough, it hit the papers.
	What's she doing?
	What's she doing?
	What's happening?
	They didn't put together that I was going in to see a plastic surgeon to stitch up this Mohs procedure.
	The speculation that hit the press later that day was that I was selling a book to Random House.
	Apparently, Random House is in the same building.
	Did I run to the papers and say, I've been endangered.
	I have cancer.
	I could have pulled that.
	Bullshit.
	Most people are in the public eye, take it like a man or a woman, and we move on with our day because we understand they have a job to do.
	And dealing with the press is part of our job too.
	This woman hasn't seen a paparazzi she wants to avoid.
	Who are we kidding?
	Just last week with her stupid little scarf as she was walking her dog, she plays them just like Princess Diana did.
	And it can be a dangerous game.
	But if this pair really wants to avoid encounters with the paparazzi that are unwanted, then they should stop cultivating that relationship because it gets a little complicated.
	By the way, not for nothing, but NBC News is now reporting that they have reached out to the NYPD and the NYPD is saying they don't know anything about it.
	All right.
	This is what they actually told local NBC.
	Let me pull it up.
	Stand by.
	I'm going through my texts.
	Via NBC4 New York, the NYPD told NBC New York, they have no information about any incident last night involving Harry and Megan, but have received lots of calls on it.
	NBC has not yet been able to verify that the incident took place.
	This is sensationalism.
	That's what's happening here from a couple that needs attention, a couple that complains at every turn about their alleged security problems.
	They have $100 million plus, but apparently they're not able to protect themselves like everybody else.
	Like, do you think the paparazzi are after them any more than they're after Tom Brady or Beyonce?
	You know what they do?
	They pay for security.
	That's what they do.
	They don't run around complaining Taylor Swift every time that Taylor Swift's house has been broken into in Manhattan numerous times by freaky stalkers.
	She doesn't run around playing the victim, releasing statements about, oh, what is me?
	Oh, it was near catastrophic.
	I could have been in there.
	No, it's part of becoming someone who's in the public eye.
	Grow up and stop lying to us because there isn't a car chase in Manhattan ever that's taken two hours through Times Square.
	That reminds me of the meet the parents scene where they were doing a car race, which is akin to, I think, to this car chase.
	This is how it would go if you had a car chase in Manhattan.
	You get the feeling.
	That's how it would go.
	You couldn't pick up enough speed.
	Were they going to the Hamptons?
	Was it an emergency car race to the Hamptons?
	Because that's the only place that takes two hours on a Tuesday night.
	Right.
	They're exaggerating because they like being in the public eye.
	And let's face it, he's been trying to make her into Diana from the moment they started dating.
	Remember early on, she had like a couple of paps following her and he released the statement like, I'm not going to allow her, what to happen to her, what happened to my mother?
	That's not what's happening.
	Welcome to being a public figure.
	Grow up.
	By the way, if the paparazzi were really doing this up on the sidewalks for two hours, endangering people, these NYPD guys would have arrested them.
	This would not have gone on for two hours.
	So I will wait to hear from the NYPD.
	I am very open-minded to a different story, but what they've put out right now stinks to high heaven, just like everything this pair puts out into the public eye.
	All right, let's get on to more fun and interesting matters.
	And that is the one and only Roseanne Barr joins me now.
	Roseanne, I'm so happy to have you here.
	Thank you for coming on.
	Thanks for having me.
	I'm excited to talk with you.
The Danger of Paparazzi Chases 00:15:36
	Oh, okay.
	So now, can I ask you, are you in Texas?
	I heard you live in Texas now and Hawaii.
	Yeah.
	Those are good choices.
	I go back and forth.
	Those are good life choices.
	But now I didn't realize when preparing for this interview that you grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah.
	I felt like I knew everything about you.
	I don't know how I missed that.
	So you grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah.
	Yeah, I say we were Jewish in Mormon, Utah.
	We stuck out.
	My family stuck out like a sore thumb there because we only had the one mother.
	So that.
	So what, describe your family situation for me?
	I know you have, I think, a brother and a sister.
	Was it a good upbringing?
	Was it like a happy childhood?
	I had two sisters and one brother.
	And I still have one sister and one brother.
	I lost my youngest sister last year.
	It was very sad.
	My mother is still alive.
	My dad is gone.
	He passed on.
	And it was a crazy family, a really kind of just out there family.
	We weren't like other families.
	And, you know, it was good for me because I wrote a lot of that into my comedy and my show.
	We were different culturally and, well, just about in every other way.
	But, you know, I was a stranger in a strange land kind of thing.
	And plus, I was, you know, very dark and fat and short.
	And everybody was tall and gorgeous and blonde.
	So there was that too.
	And then, and then when you were pretty young, catastrophe hit where you were hit by a car.
	Can you, how old were you when that happened?
	I was 16.
	I got hit by a car on my way to school.
	But of course, that wasn't the first catastrophe in my life.
	That was like about the 75th.
	But yeah, I was run over.
	The car threw me up in the air.
	I didn't even see it coming.
	I was just crossing the street.
	And it threw me up in the air.
	And when I landed, my head came down on the hood ornament.
	And then she dragged me under her tires for about 30 feet before she knew she had hit me because the sun blinded her.
	So my legs were like hamburger meat.
	And I was in, you know, unconscious and in a coma for a few days and semi-conscious for a couple of weeks.
	Had a brain concussion and a skull concussion.
	And I had to have all these skin grafts on my legs.
	My God.
	I mean, that is.
	And that, like, really, you know, like a lot of people who have, you know, really bad head injuries, it did change my life.
	And I went through a lot of trauma trying to heal from it.
	For about 10 years, I was in a lot of trauma because of, you know, head injury.
	That's why I feel sorry for these football players and guys that play sports and get hit in the head a lot, boxers and stuff, because it really does do damage to your life.
	Do you like, it's sort of a weird question, but do you feel like you would have had the career you've had if that had not happened to you?
	Was there something important about that in the person you would become?
	Well, yeah, because I, well, you know, it changes you.
	But after that, I got suddenly really, you know, a lot of people who go through that kind of trauma, they either become really introspective or they start doing things that are uncharacteristic.
	And that's what I did.
	And I started doing like kind of crazy things that I hadn't done before.
	I became a full-blown hippie.
	And I'd been pretty conservative till then.
	So I kind of changed between night and day, you know, and I started doing full-blown hippie things, like things that I would just go crazy if my kids did.
	Like I hitchhike cross-country and just crazy, crazy, stupid things to put myself at risk.
	And I never feared anything.
	I had no fear for anything.
	And now I look back and shudder because I'm like, why didn't you have what happened to your instinct of self-protection?
	But that kind of was gone.
	And I kept putting myself in dangerous places all the time.
	But I don't know.
	I just got really hairless and fearless.
	And so when I was 28 and I stepped on stage for the first time as a comic, which I always wanted to be, it kind of came in handy to remember being fearless and brazen.
	And it helped me with that.
	Yeah, definitely.
	Were you always funny?
	I was always funny because in my family, my dad was hilarious.
	He wanted to be a stand-up comic and everybody was funny.
	And that's how you stayed out of trouble.
	If you could, if I could make my dad laugh, he wouldn't hit me.
	So that I learned very, very early because I was always in trouble.
	And if I could make the teachers laugh or the kids at school, I would be easily forgiven for all the infractions I did every hour.
	I never was a well-behaved girl.
	He didn't understand anything about how the world works, which is kind of why I sort of identify with Harry because I look at him, Prince Harry, and I think, but that guy never lived in the real world for one day in his life.
	And then he marries this woman and she tries to get him to live in the regular world.
	And he's so not equipped for it.
	It's, I kind of feel sorry for him.
	He's like that movie being there.
	Remember that movie being there with that great comic that I can't remember, Peter Sellers.
	And he's just like just lost in the world.
	And I feel sorry for Harry.
	And that must have been really traumatic for him to know that that's how his mother died, that being chased by paparazzi.
	It must have been it.
	And he talks about having PTSD.
	So that must have been really traumatic for him to relive that.
	And I don't think that she has, she doesn't seem to think of him too much.
	But I'm really on this thing where I, you know, I have two grown sons.
	And so, you know, I had to see the women they date and all that stuff.
	And it really changed my view of women.
	And so now I'm like really protective of guys and the women they get with.
	I don't know.
	I used to be the other way, but with grown sons, you change a little, you know, you have sons, right?
	I know exactly what you mean.
	Yeah, I've got two.
	And right now, I feel like there'll never be anybody good enough for them.
	No, no one will ever measure up.
	And you're right.
	Well, I have to say, my son, my older son, he's got a wife and they have a baby.
	And I am so happy with her.
	I'm telling you what, I'm so happy with her.
	You know, after I forced my son to divorce his first wife, I had to do a lot of work to get that going.
	But then I took him to Jerusalem and I said, you better get over to the wall and you better say a prayer that you get a good, you know, one that gets along with me.
	Get over there and say your prayer right now.
	So I forced him to go over there.
	And he came back from the wall.
	And I said, did you say your prayer?
	And he goes, yeah, I prayed that the Broncos would win the Super Bowl there.
	And I'm like, even God can't make that happen.
	But anyway, no, they did not win.
	But I said, did you do what I told you and asked for the right woman to come into your life?
	He goes, yes, I did.
	Well, we got home.
	It must not have been more than nine months.
	Here she comes from Texas, a Jewish girl from Texas.
	Very nice, very nice family.
	Thrilled.
	My granddaughter looks exactly like me, acts exactly like me.
	It's like a gift from God.
	My son says, What kind of karma is it when you're raising your own mother?
	And I'm like, oh, you so deserve that.
	She's so fun.
	You're so lucky.
	It is hard.
	I think, you know, my guys are still little.
	They don't date yet.
	But I know I will disapprove of most of the girls they bring home.
	And I know I will hold my tongue because, you know, you're not going to be able to do that.
	Don't do that.
	Don't ever.
	What do you mean?
	This is my advice.
	No, don't hold your tongue.
	Don't ever hold your tongue when it comes to anyone in your family because that's just sweeping your crap under the rug.
	And you end up with a huge rug in the middle of your house with a lot of shit underneath it that you're living with when you should be sweeping it out the door every day so you can have a clean house with no clutter.
	You never hold your tongue.
	Just learn to say things nicely.
	Because I'd be worried, I think.
	You see what I mean?
	They'd choose her.
	Like they'd say, you don't like her.
	I would be worried that they'd say, you don't like her.
	Bye, we're going to spend all our time together and I'll just exclude you from it.
	And I won't talk to you about it.
	Well, you can't say, I don't like you, of course.
	I mean, nobody's going to go for that.
	You have to say, well, what is it about her that bothers you?
	And then say, like, this, you know, it, it kind of bothers me when you do this.
	And I'd really like to resolve that between us so that we can stay close.
	See, you got a bullshit like that.
	I'm calling you in about three to four years, just as soon as my eldest starts dating.
	We got to resume this.
	You got to say, you got to say things nicely.
	That's what I've learned.
	That's the key.
	Well, but don't hold your tongue.
	Just say it nice.
	So all of this, like it's starting to come into focus now, like how you wound up on the stage and how you were an instant hit.
	And like given your past and the fearlessness and the need to be funny and just sort of your irreverence.
	So, but before we get to that, can we just spend a minute?
	You were 18 and you found yourself pregnant and you decided to give the baby.
	Well, I didn't find myself pregnant.
	You went and got pregnant.
	Yeah.
	Well, I had sex because I, I don't know, I just really wanted to have sex because I thought I should because everyone else was doing it, you know.
	And I just wanted to know what it was like and all that, like everybody else.
	And, well, I read these books, never read books.
	Anyway, no, I'm kidding.
	But it's, I got it backwards because I'm dyslexic, I guess.
	So I thought I was doing it on the safe days of my cycle.
	Turns out I was doing it on the most fertile days.
	So I had sex.
	The first time I ever had sex, I got pregnant.
	I did that real good.
	So yeah.
	So the sex I had, I don't even remember it.
	And well, actually, I do, but I'm trying not to.
	But anyway, I ended up having a baby and I gave her up for adoption.
	And she turned 52 yesterday.
	And when I, and I'm very proud of her, she's a wonderful woman.
	And she has a wonderful son, Ari Rubin, who I'm very proud of, won the state championship in chess in Colorado.
	You know, he's only 16.
	He won the state championship in chess.
	That's how smart he is.
	I'm very proud.
	Nice husband, very nice from Russia.
	Anyway, so I forget what I'm talking about.
	What am I talking about?
	About you, and she's 52.
	So I had her, and I had to go to the salvation home for Salvation Army home for unwed mothers, where I had her.
	And then I had to give her up for adoption, which was very hard.
	And when she was born, she had one ear that was kind of misshapen.
	It was folded over like my mom's ear.
	And I thought, oh, God made her ear like that.
	So I'll be able to find her when she's 18.
	And I always said, and I told her when I got to keep her for two days.
	And I told her, I'll see you again when you're 18.
	And I'll recognize you from your ear.
	And so that's why I kept my name Roseanne Barr, because in my mind, I was like, I'm going to be famous.
	And I'm going to keep my name Roseanne Barr because it's on her birth certificate and she'll be able to find me easier.
	So cut two.
	She's 17 and a half years old and I'm famous.
	And she gets a phone call from the paparazzi, from the National Enquirer, by the way.
	And they say, your mother is trying to, well, it's a long story.
	But anyway, she gets the phone call.
	Your mother is a famous star in Hollywood.
	And she wants to meet you because, see, they came to me and they said, we found your daughter.
	We paid off the somebody in Colorado Records like they just did with Rihanna and Rocky to get their kid's name.
	But anyway, Rizza, which is cool.
	But anyway, I was going to say, Prince Harry and them, they ought to do what Rihanna and Rocky do.
	The paparazzi hold parking spaces for those guys.
	You got to get the right security and they'll be on your side, which I found out because I used to always be attacked by paparazzi too.
	Anyway, so they come to me.
	Every public found your daughter.
	Every public has been through it.
	They act like they're the only two to ever have to deal with this.
	Well, I think that, you know, he's probably been protected his whole life, you know, so he doesn't know what's going on to get in a cab.
	Oh my God.
	Anyway, so they say, you know, and so they call her and she said she always knew that her mom would be famous.
	She knew that since she was little.
	And she looks just like Goldie Han.
	So she thought it was Goldie Han.
	And she got like all excited because she's a singer too.
	And she thought, well, either her or Bette Medler, I sort of look like them, she thought.
	And they said it's Roseanne Barr.
	And she went, I didn't even know she was a Jew because she was adopted through Jewish family and children's services.
	She goes, Huh, Roseanne Barr.
	I didn't even know she was a Jew, which is hilarious.
	But then she said she looked down at the coffee table and I was on the cover of the Inquirer that sat there when she got the call.
	And she looked down at the inquirer and went, Oh my God, because there was this, you know, fat girl on there.
	And, you know, she was very Texas, beautiful.
	She used a whole can of hairspray to get her hair a foot high every day.
	So she's looking down and she said, all of a sudden, it started getting real clear to her that she did look like that.
	And for me, it was like, you know, I always trust in my life, I've always trusted God.
	And I knew that I got that feeling that I would see her.
	And that I felt that feeling was from my prayers being answered my whole life.
Choosing Barbarity Over Easy Solutions 00:03:55
	And so I wasn't even that surprised.
	Well, so they set up the meeting, and her and her adoptive mom, who's just her other mom, I say, you know, she's, we're not going to say biological or adoptive.
	She has two moms who love her.
	And so her and her mom flew to LA and we met in a hotel.
	And I would ran, me and my sister, we ran through the doors of this hotel.
	And I turned to turn left into the cafeteria and she saw me.
	And we were just on each other like we just knew each other for all those years.
	And so the bodyguards grabbed us because we couldn't let each other go and they shoved us in the elevator.
	We went up to the 16th floor and we just, you know, we remembered everything that we had gone through for 17 years apart is how I can say it.
	She's been in my life since then.
	And she lived with me for a while.
	And then she moved on to start her life when she was about 26.
	She's done real well for herself.
	She runs a wonderful nonprofit organization called Billion Acts of Peace.
	She's a wonderful person.
	And I'm so glad that we reconnected.
	A lot of young girls, 18 years old, would have made a different decision.
	You know, would have chosen an abortion instead of to carry the baby to term and give it up, which you know is going to be emotionally tough for you.
	How did you think about that at the time?
	I knew it was going to be tough because I thought, you know, I'm never going to even know if she's alive or if she did get good parents.
	But I would always keep tabs on that Jewish and family children services there in Denver.
	Always like to spy on people.
	Consider not going through with the pregnancy?
	No.
	I lived in Utah and that wasn't a possibility.
	But even if it had been, that's not for me.
	I'm not, you know, that's not for me.
	I have five kids.
	And I said, one of my jokes is, hey, I should have stayed a Democrat because pretty soon they're going to make abortion legal up to the time they're 60.
	And I should have hung in there.
	Well, I see then you could kill your adult kids too.
	Ha ha ha.
	My kids are like, you know, my four older kids are from 42 to 52.
	And sometimes I'd, you know, really like to take them to task.
	And my youngest is 28.
	But no, I'm glad I had them all.
	And I think we, I think we're way past the point where abortion should be anything that anybody thinks of because we have the technology to prevent pregnancies.
	And it's just barbaric that we haven't come farther than that.
	And it really makes me mad when they say women have the right to choose.
	And then the choice they're talking about is that something so barbaric.
	And yesterday, when, you know, I say, you know, why don't they just clip little boys when they're born?
	You know, give them a vasectomy at birth that can be reversed when they grow up and get a damn job.
	You know what I mean?
	They could do something easy like that, but instead they choose this barbarity.
	And, you know, there's a lot of reasons why they're all horrible.
	But we should be beyond that kind of a remedy for, we shouldn't even have unwanted pregnancies.
	Hello, that's ridiculous.
	We can fake like we send a man to the moon and we can't prevent pregnancy.
A Life Changed on Friday Night 00:13:50
	I remember.
	Yeah.
	I know I have to fake laugh because there's nobody's getting my jokes, but I'm used to that.
	They're getting, they are.
	I remember there was a scene in Roseanne where Jackie, you know, your sister in the sitcom was pregnant and you were in front of the little, you know, sonogram machine looking at the sonogram with her.
	And I remember she was like, oh, look at there's his little toes and there's his little spine.
	And you said, or she said, it looks like he's wearing a hat on his head.
	And you said, I think we know what happened to the condom.
	It was great.
	There were so many great moments on that show.
	I have a couple of clips that I'll go through with you, some of my favorites because we watched it religiously, as they said.
	And that'll be our next chapter after I squeeze in a quick break and then right back to the one and only Roseanne Barr.
	Stay with us.
	She's with me for the full show.
	So, Roseanne, you get through this challenge.
	You're young.
	You're trying to figure out what's next in your life.
	And eventually, you start doing a little comedy.
	You were a waitress and you decided to try your hand at stand-up comedy, which is very scary for any civilian out there thinking about getting up in front of a crowd and trying to make them laugh.
	How did you first start out?
	What was the first time like you stood up in front of people and actually told jokes with the intention of making people laugh?
	Well, I guess I was 28 and I had been a cocktail waitress for about a year and I was always joking around with the customers there.
	And, You know, it was always in the back of my mind that I would either write comedy or perform it because it just came easy to me.
	And I had written quite a bit of funny stories for magazines and newspapers by that time, anyway.
	You know, but anyway, these guys that I was waiting on, they said, Oh, you ought to go down to this comedy club in downtown Denver, Larimer Street.
	And I went, What?
	They said, Yeah, there's a comedy club down there.
	And so I went, Oh my God, I got to do it because I had just seen this play with my sister about Gertrude Stein.
	And there was this piece in the play.
	Pat Carroll was portraying Gertrude Stein who's my favorite writer.
	And it was about your 28th year.
	And it said, In every life, there is a 28th year.
	And it isn't always when you're 28, but it's the year where you become yourself and you start to do what you really want to do.
	It moved me a lot.
	And I was 28.
	And so I went to the club.
	The next week, I got my husband, Bill.
	And, you know, he was funny and a writer too, had written a lot of funny things for different magazines like me.
	We were both writers.
	And I said, let's go down because, you know, I want to see what it's like.
	So we went down to the club and I watched the comics.
	And, you know, arrogantly, I thought, oh, hell, I'm so much funnier than any of them.
	And I said, come on, Bill, we're funnier.
	Let's go write the material.
	We thought we were going to do great.
	And then it took a year to write five minutes.
	We thought it was going to be really, really easy.
	Look how cute you are here.
	You are adorable in this picture.
	So you're 28 years old.
	Let me see that again.
	28 years old.
	Yeah.
	And Bill's 29 or 30.
	Oh, my God.
	You're adorable.
	We already had our three kids.
	We had a 17-year-old.
	Yeah, I had that time was my, I had four children at that time that I had given birth to.
	You know, my oldest one is, you know, with her other parents.
	But yeah, so I was, you know, during the daytime, I was raising my three kids at home.
	And Bill was working at the post office.
	And then I would start going out to clubs to the comedy store.
	I mean, the comedy shop.
	I mean, the comedy works.
	That's what they changed their name to.
	In Denver, a couple of nights a week.
	And Bill would take over at home.
	And then me and Bill on the weekends would sit and try to write jokes.
	And that's how it all started.
	I kept on going.
	And the first night I went up, that was in 1980.
	First night I went up, I killed.
	I just killed.
	And I was like, yes, I'm going to get Eddie Murphy money.
	It's going to be so easy.
	Second week, I came back, died a dog's death with the same material, you know.
	But I think I got a little arrogant and I didn't deliver it right.
	Whatever reason there was.
	You always have to look for the reason when you're a comic.
	But anyway, so they got mad at me and they banned me from the club then on that my second night.
	Just because I was like, oh, hell now, what am I going to do?
	That's not cool.
	Oh, yeah.
	I was bombed one time.
	Isn't that part of the process?
	Yeah.
	Well, some woman in the audience complained about me.
	She said my pants were too tight and I was offending women.
	So they got rid of me, you know.
	Okay.
	You were the victim of cancel culture a few times.
	Nothing's changed.
	It's always some bitch.
	Anyway, anyway, so then I had to figure out how I was going to get better.
	And I started to perform all over Denver in unusual clubs that would let me perform.
	I went to Unitarian churches.
	That was a big one.
	They're coffee houses, full of lesbians and such.
	And of course, they'd never laugh at anything.
	But I still tried to get them to laugh, and sometimes I could.
	And then I'd go to biker bars, and then I'd be really rough language in the biker bars.
	And, you know, you could get them to laugh.
	I went to black jazz clubs down there in the inner city, and they were the best audience ever I've ever been in front of, still are.
	And then I got real brave on account of that because it was a hip audience that was very, you know, had, was well read.
	And that added a lot to me.
	And then I started going to punk bars and they would make me do my jokes in the mosh pit.
	So I did that even with no microphone.
	I was in the mosh pit going, hey, you guys, you know, screaming.
	That's where I got such a loud voice from.
	And then some rock and roll people let me start opening up for them.
	Jazz people let me start opening up for them.
	And then people passing through town, bands like, you know, oh, God, now I can't remember nobody's name, but Dave, the Dave Mason.
	And, you know, they hired me to open in Denver.
	I know at some point somebody saw you and said, you got to come on the tonight show, which is the big break.
	I mean, that was.
	Oh, that was my big, that was after four years of that.
	And then somebody comes, Louie Anderson comes to Denver there and he goes, you got to let Mitzi Shore see you.
	And Alan Stephen, two comics that would headline in Denver and all the locals would open up for him.
	They go, you got to let Mitzi Shore see you.
	Come to LA, Mitzi's going to love you.
	And, you know, in my mind, it was like Mitzi Shore was the god of comedy.
	So I came out to the comedy store in LA.
	My first night on stage after four years of perfecting it, well, really five years, 85, I came up to do my five minutes for Mitzi Shore and I killed.
	And Mitzi said, go do 20 minutes in the big room.
	And the waitress has said that had never happened before where somebody went from showcase to main room in the same night.
	Well, that same night, George Slaughter was there and he was casting for a show he was doing about women in comedy.
	That very same night, he booked me to be one of the stars in his women of comedy.
	I think they called it Girls of Comedy then.
	And when I came back two weeks later, after I went home to get my kids all sorted out so I could come back to LA in two weeks and stay for two weeks.
	The night I came back to work for George Slaughter, a guy came up to me.
	So I'd been in LA approximately two nights by this time.
	A guy came up to me and he said, Roseanne, I'm with the Tonight Show and I want to book you on Friday.
	And the Tonight Show at that time was like somebody coming up to a brand new comic and saying, we're going to feature you on your own HBO special on Friday.
	You know, it was like the biggest thing that could ever happen.
	And I went on Friday and my life changed.
	I had been out of Denver for two days, really.
	And my entire life changed.
	That night on the tonight show, Julio Iglesias was a guest and he asked me to open for him on an 18th city tour, which I did.
	And then I got the TV show.
	Yeah, then they found you.
	I love the stories about you sitting out there with Carson.
	And, you know, we picture that exchange with you being your normal funny self and him eating it up.
	And I know the truth was very different.
	You were very stiff and intimidated by your circumstances the first time on his show.
	Yeah, he waved me over from doing the stand-up to come and sit on the panel.
	And I was like, oh, no, I'm getting the hell out of here.
	And so I just ran off stage and I ran into the car and I go, I got to go home.
	I just got, you know, if I get really nervous, I'll get all tongue-tied and I'll stutter, you know, and I thought, I'm not prepared because I always want to be prepared.
	I was so not prepared.
	So then they booked me back for two weeks later.
	I came on again and they came to me and they go, Johnny wants you to come and sit with him when you're done.
	And I'm like, oh my God, I don't have no material to do on the panel.
	I'm not going to be able to run out.
	I don't know what I'm going to do.
	And I was just panicked, but I did good on the stand-up part.
	And then I'm like, I got to go over there.
	So I go over there and he tries to set me up for jokes.
	And all I can do is just go, thank you, Mr. Carson.
	Thank you so much, Mr. Carson.
	You have changed my life.
	And I love you so much, Mr. Carson.
	I'm like the most boring.
	But then I got it together for my third Carson and I relaxed.
	And, you know, I thought I was going to start crying and pee my pants there.
	But how old were you then, Roseanne?
	I got it together.
	How old were you then?
	I was 31.
	No, 32.
	Very, very young woman.
	This is very shortly after you started doing stand-up.
	So it really was a meteoric rise.
	And then you were spotted by the people who ultimately put together the Roseanne show, correct?
	Like it was on your tour with Spooky Robinson that you were spotted by somebody who makes sitcoms.
	And this was, of course, just to remind our younger audience at the time when, you know, there were very few options when it came to like your nightly television.
	So to get a show, my God, it was incredibly competitive.
	And your show, ultimately, I'll just jump to the, you know, the climax, had 30 million people watching it a night.
	There's nothing that compares in today's day and age.
	Well, we actually had 38 million and sometimes 44 million a week to watch it.
	And the thing that was amazing is there was only like three channels, though.
	But that Bill Cosby show was number one.
	And that was all the rage, you know, this kind of rich upper class family of professionals.
	And so they didn't know how my show was going to go, but I did.
	I knew.
	And that's why I wrote it, you know, because I thought there's got to be a show about real human beings and real people on TV.
	I thought that when I was a girl and I used to watch TV and I'm like, this is nothing like my family.
	Where's the, you know, this is nothing real like any family I've ever seen.
	So I used to have these fantasies as a girl.
	If I'm, you know, when I grow up, I'm going to write a show and it's going to show real stuff on it.
	So, anyways, that's what I grew up and did.
	And my show became number one in Unseated Cosby, as I sort of knew it was going to do.
	And I was grateful because my prayers got answered then too.
	It was nice.
	You know, I only have a minute to break, but I understand that when you launched it, instead of going to the pilot and seeing created by Roseanne Barr, you saw created by, I think, Matt Harris.
	You saw a guy's name on there who was one of the writers, I guess.
	Yeah.
	What was it?
	Matt?
	Yeah.
	Williams, Matt Williams, which I have to say, like it must have been absolutely infuriating to you as we've all listened to how the show was truly birthed and it wasn't by Matt Williams.
Fighting for Credit and Control 00:06:29
	No, that's just the way it is, huh?
	That's the way it is for women in Hollywood.
	Hadn't changed.
	It's gotten worse.
	And I thought I just couldn't, I couldn't believe it.
	I had about 15 nervous breakdowns over that one, but there's nothing I could do.
	I tried to sue everybody, but as usual, there's not one lawyer in LA who will sue anybody with any power in TV.
	I found.
	But you stood up for yourself, which is, I mean, that's saying something in and of itself because at this point, you're young.
	You don't, you know, you're new in the business.
	I'm sure you're thrilled you have your own show.
	So it's pretty ballsy to even sue and threaten and complain, which you did.
	But that ballsy doesn't begin to describe Roseanne Barr in all of her fullness.
	Stand by, quick break.
	We'll pick it up right there and we'll get into the show right after this quick, quick commercial.
	Before we get back to Roseanne, just bring you this quick news on a story that we've been covering quite a bit here on the MK show, and that is Fox News may have some breaking news.
	Drudge Report is reporting right now that they have decided on what to do about their hemorrhaging 8 p.m. hour formerly occupied by Tucker Carlson, that they will be moving Sean Hannity, currently at 9, into the 8 o'clock slot, and that they will then keep Jesse Waters in the prime time, which I believe means he'll move to either 9 or 10 as opposed to staying at 7.
	And that Greg Gutfeld will also head to prime time.
	Greg Gutfeld is now at 11.
	It's not really considered prime.
	Prime is really 8, 9, and 10.
	So presumably they're talking about moving him.
	If that's true, one wonders what's happening to Laura Ingram, who's currently at 10.
	They reached out to Fox, the folks at MediaIte, and they said, quote, no decision's been made on a new primetime lineup, and there are multiple scenarios under consideration.
	But I can tell you, having worked there, that Drudge always has the leaks on the lineup changes there.
	He certainly had the one when I moved to prime time long before anybody else did.
	And he's got impeccable sources inside the building.
	So I'd be surprised if he were wrong.
	They need to do something.
	I will submit for the record, this isn't it.
	This is not it.
	They need a voice like Tucker's.
	And even that's probably not going to do it because the audience is very angry and they miss Tucker.
	But Hannity is not the answer at eight.
	He's not the answer at eight.
	He hasn't been the answer at nine lately since Tucker left.
	We've been following the readings.
	They're hemorrhaging at eight and nine, where currently Sean Raid is right now.
	And just by way of numbers, in that we now have it up to four weeks, the four weeks prior to Tucker's departure, he was averaging a 3.3 million in the overall.
	Now it's less than half.
	They're averaging 1.5 million.
	So less than half than what Tucker got.
	He was averaging a 429,000 in the demo, 25 to 54 year olds.
	They're now pulling in 152,000.
	And that time slot and Hannity's not much better.
	He's at 158,000 in the demo, down about half from 308,000.
	And his overall is down significantly too, all double-digit falls.
	So, you know, the audience will have the last say on whether these are the solutions.
	But right now, they're still very, very angry at Fox News.
	And Fox hasn't done much to assuage their concerns or make them feel better about firing their top star who remains under contract but silenced.
	That is, of course, Tucker Carlson.
	So more on that as we get it.
	Now, back to Roseanne Barr.
	Now, Roseanne, the show starts off and it's cooking with gasoline.
	It doesn't start off in the number one position, but you got there how soon after lunch?
	Third episode.
	Third.
	So what was it?
	What was the magic of that show that made it such a hit?
	Because it just showed regular people.
	It showed a regular family of working class people.
	And, you know, that's who the audience is.
	They always forget that, you know.
	But that's who the audience is.
	And they wanted to see, I thought they wanted to see themselves not being put down, but being lifted up.
	And so that's what I tried to do.
	One of my favorite episodes of the show, I just pulled a little clip because it's something I remembered all these years.
	It just would make you laugh out loud at talking about real people problems, but with a sense of humor, not in a dark or sad way.
	And it was the episode where DJ, your son on the show, got into the school spelling bee.
	And we just had one of our little guys win his spelling bee at his school.
	So this is timely for my family too.
	The funniest thing ever.
	Here it is, Sat 2.
	Good deeds.
	You can do it, buddy.
	Be the word.
	Sound it out.
	Jeez, it's just a spelling bee.
	Maybe to you, Pal, but it's all we've got.
	Everybody.
	Oh, please, please let it be a word he knows.
	David Jacob, your word is foreclosure.
	For the listening audience, Dan Connor puts his arm around Roseanne.
	They sit back.
	They know it, kids got it.
	Peter.
	Absolutely brilliant.
	Those moments are belly laughs that you brought to us for years.
	It's what made us all fall in love with you.
	And John Goodman, you know, the Connor family, they became like members of our family.
	It must have been, to the outsider, it seems like it would have been a very special time.
	Do you remember it fondly or do you remember, you know, the battles that must have also been going on behind the scenes?
	Both.
	I remember the performance on Friday that we taped in front of a live audience being just the best and that it made the previous four days worth it.
The Battle Behind the Show 00:15:13
	And those previous four days were a battle every minute, every day with writers, with producers.
	But I had a great crew and they pulled me through so many things and just so many things.
	And I'm sure.
	My allegiance was to my crew because my crew to me represented the people at home who were my fans and the audience.
	And of course, my real allegiance was to them because they're the ones who made the show and they're the ones who made me.
	So of course, my allegiance was not to any network people, but to them.
	And still.
	What were the tensions?
	Like, what kind of a hard time were they giving you?
	We talked a little bit about Matt Williams and them trying to sort of steal credit from you.
	But what else?
	What were some of the power battles?
	Well, they did steal credit and I tried to fight that.
	I went to my agents.
	I went to the network president.
	I went to lawyers.
	I went everywhere because I said, this is wrong.
	And then they said, well, you waited 10 days.
	You didn't respond within 10 days.
	So, you know, you have no fight left.
	That's what the Writers Guild told me.
	And at that time, I was like, how am I going to fight this?
	And once they won that battle, then the next battle was, oh, now you have to say what we tell you to say, even though I was the author and it was about my life.
	And, you know, every character in it was about my life or someone in my life, my own three children, my own husband, me.
	And then they were going to start telling me what I was going to say.
	And it was all sexist.
	It was all backward sexism.
	And I wasn't going to play it that way because I didn't come to TV to be a caricature.
	I came to be an anti-caricature of a woman, which was unheard of, of course, except for just a couple exceptions of other women who I love and admire from television.
	But so I battled that.
	And, you know, they would keep the cameras on me.
	And I said, I need it.
	My lawyer said, just say, I request a line change.
	And so I said, I request a line change.
	And they said, no, you're not going to get it.
	Say the line as written.
	That went on for eight hours.
	And, you know, they could, I guess they couldn't come up with a new line.
	And then I'd say, well, do you want me to write the line?
	And they were really horrified that I would write the joke because it would be funny.
	And that's one thing they hate is funny.
	And so then I just said, fine, I'm going to just do it.
	And then I just started writing and putting them in myself.
	I just said no.
	And, you know, they kept trying to break my back, but that doesn't work for a Jewish girl from Utah, a poor working-class Jewish girl from Utah.
	It doesn't work to try to break my back.
	So my sister, who was very strong too, she drew out a chessboard and she said, Here's what you're going to do.
	Here's their king, here's their queen, this and that and the other.
	And you're going to take your guy and this and that and the other.
	And I went, yeah, I've got a game plan, you know.
	And so I hung a thing on my door.
	This was after the first episode when I couldn't get created by credit or even share created by credit in my creation.
	I wrote a poster on my door and I said, These are the people that will be fired when this show goes to number one.
	And I put all their names down, including the network president and everybody that I didn't, you know, that I felt had screwed me over.
	And when the show went to number one, they were all gone, including that network president.
	So I just by sheer force of will.
	And, you know, I want to say, having grown up in an apartment house with Holocaust survivors as a girl, I am not a person that can be broken.
	I don't know why, but I'm not.
	It must have been a little honored when they came to visit the office.
	Saw their names on a kill sheet.
	Did anybody see it was on the back of your door with a big X over?
	Oh, yeah, they all saw it.
	They all saw it and they thought it was funny.
	And, you know, everybody thought it was funny.
	And I laughed too, like I thought it was funny.
	You know, I'd be like, these are the people that are gone.
	They're like, oh, you are such a fun, funny person.
	And as soon as it was number one, I'm like, I won't even have to remove them because they'll just get rid of themselves.
	And the first thing I did was ban the producers from the set.
	And, you know, because I didn't want anybody there who was just there to give me grief.
	And, you know, I wanted to be creative and funny.
	I wanted to have fun.
	I wanted to write lines for the other characters.
	I wanted to, you know, create art for television for my viewers that I love.
	And they just hate that.
	You know, they hate, they really hate all talent because they've done their best to squash it and ruin it.
	Uh, but they particularly hate a woman who has it.
	So I got a double dose.
	But at the end of the third season, when I got rid of Matt Williams, they told me, well, he will be gone, but you'll have to wait this many days.
	So I counted those down and you know that was a fight.
	But uh, when I got rid of him and I got my writers and I hired a lot of comics and people who had never had a job before as writers um, gave a lot of writers their first job who went on to you know sitcom history, um.
	But by the end of the third yeah, jet appetal off Sweden um, tech lorry, tons of them.
	I can't remember a million other names, uh.
	But at the end of the third or fourth season I was very, very happy because I had helped to unionize the crew and I feel like that's my greatest accomplishment, that they would get benefits.
	Not just, they really just wanted you to shut up and act and just be the actress in the lead role, as opposed to the creator, the joke writer, all the things I mean, all the things that made you a star, who they solicited in the first place.
	And yet, despite the behind the scenes, turmoil.
	Yeah, I don't even know why.
	I don't even know.
	Yeah, I was gonna say I I don't even know why.
	Why do they even want us?
	The first thing they do is like you need to shut up now and like they wrote Roseanne Connor as if she just sat there.
	That's how they wrote my character.
	I was like, oh Christ right, that doesn't ring true.
	I mean, the cast was absolutely brilliant and one of my favorites, and everyone's favorites, was Lori Metcalf, the woman who played your sister Jackie, who I don't know if she had a comedy background or what, but this woman would make you laugh out loud every episode and it's.
	It's a tough crew to hang with.
	You know, you're with Roseanne barr, you're with John Goodman.
	I mean, i'd hate to have to be funny in your presence.
	It would be intimidating and hard.
	But she, she bore the burden.
	Well, in another one of my favorite scenes as a mother myself of three, i've thought back on this many.
	You know Lori was on Saturday Night Live for a little bit before she came on my on my show.
	That makes sense, funny gifted.
	That makes sense because you can tell how funny she is.
	But here's, here is the clip, the first.
	The whole thing is funny.
	But the first line I have quoted a million times during the three of my pregnancies and I I offer it now to the other women out there wondering the same thing that Jackie was wondering while very pregnant.
	The actual actress was pregnant I think in this uh exchange in sat 11.
	Be they old child inside of me?
	Look at me.
	Is she huge?
	Yeah, but you have a very pretty face like that.
	How Roseanne, how is this gonna come out of this?
	Relax, Jackie.
	These have been coming out of those for millions and millions of years.
	You know, muscles stretch, bones break.
	I'm sick of being pregnant.
	Well, maybe it's like a turkey.
	You know, when this comes out, it's red, pressing the belly button.
	How is this gonna come out through this?
	It's such a good question.
	Well, we all find out, don't we?
	Absolutely.
	But what about Lori Metcalf did?
	Did you have a good relationship with her then?
	And and do you still?
	I have no relationship with her, but we had a great relationship for the, not for those 10 years that we worked together.
	We were one of the ones who abandoned you after the whole cancellation controversy.
	Yeah, that was just it.
	I'm so sad to hear that Roseanne.
	I kind of hoped she was one of the deep guys.
	Uh, you know Hollywood, yeah.
	You know how it is?
	Yeah, of course.
	And then you figure out who your real friends are.
	Um, so that's the.
	Yeah, you figure out, you got none.
	You ain't got no friends in Hollywood.
	Well, if they're gonna make, if they're gonna make one dime more to slice your throat.
	You know you ain't got no friends.
	Well, let's talk about it.
	My only friends in Hollywood died.
	That's what's horrible.
	Well wait, because I want to get into.
	I thought John Goodman was good, but you'll tell me but you so that Roseanne ended after nine years.
	It was number one for most of them.
	Then you did a couple of other things and then they the Roseanne reboot comes back on, as we're seeing now, with a lot of very popular shows.
	This one's called well, now it's called The Connors, but you came back and you were the star of it.
	And then you got in trouble, as everyone remembers, for some tweets that you sent out about Valerie Jarrett one night, where you the next morning said you'd been on ambient and you were apologetic.
	You were sorry, but I mean like that.
	They canceled the show.
	And what was extraordinary in that moment and, believe me, I understand this personally now on some level is how your cast your quote family came out person by person and attacked you.
	In particular, the one I remember is Sarah Gilbert, who seemed to really want to hurt you.
	She saw you were down and struggling and instead of lifting you up or at least saying nothing or saying I love her.
	I'm out of respect for all she's done for me.
	I'm going to sit this one out, which was the bare minute.
	She, she stuck the knife in and she twisted it so repeatedly.
	She repeatedly twisted it, um she uh, she.
	It was her tweet that canceled the show.
	And uh, she wrote, um, it's sad when one cast member that's what she called me after she begged me to come back saying, i've got your back this time, I won't let anyone at you, I won't let anyone hurt you.
	I'm going to protect you.
	I know, you know you have mental health problems, but i'm going to be there, i'm going to stand in the way.
	This, all the crap.
	She told me, you know, and um uh, then she tweeted, when it's sad when one cast member uh, something about racist blah, blah and um, I was floored, I was just floored.
	And uh, you know, but she ends up owning my work.
	And uh, Tom Warner becomes her partner in owning my work.
	And um, it's just so banal and every day in Hollywood, I can't even complain about it anymore.
	Tom Warner tried to fire me the second week or third week of the original show because he thought you know me, running around trying to get my creator by credit was a pain in his ass, and so they tried to replace me at that time.
	Fired, Fired me off my own show.
	But at that time, they went to John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, and asked them if they would do the show without me.
	And they said no.
	So they couldn't, they didn't dare fire me then, but they would have had they done what they did the second time around.
	I wouldn't have ever had a show.
	I would have been fired off that too, if they would have acted the same as they did the second time.
	But because they didn't act that way, is why the show went on.
	So, cut to me coming back in the reboot, getting 28 million viewers who, you know, Disney didn't care about them at all.
	They canceled the show before even one sponsor pulled out.
	But the really weird thing is, I was saying about Tom Werner, he kind of got what he was always after.
	And I didn't know it.
	You know what I mean?
	I thought, I kind of thought that I had caused a lot of trouble and that the second time around, I was going to be better, nicer, bigger.
	I never thought, hey, it's not you.
	You're not the problem.
	You never were the problem.
	I always tend to blame myself being a comic or whatever it is.
	But then I went to myself, why did you ever go back with people who tried to hurt you so bad in the beginning?
	And I was like, I tried to make it right.
	And then I was like, why would you try to make it right with people?
	I have no intention of making anything right.
	They wanted to continue to hurt you.
	And I never, it never even occurred to me that that was a possibility.
	But one time I was in the car on the reboot with Tom Warner.
	We were talking about the show.
	And I said, you know, it's great how many people think of me as their mom and tell me that every day wherever I go.
	And out of nowhere, he turned to me and he goes, I hated my mother.
	And a chill went up my spine.
	And I thought, this is a bad, bad portend.
	Because, you know, we were, I don't know.
	But then later, I see that the guy who canceled my show is, you know, at Tom Warner's wedding.
	So they were all, you know, they, I, I don't even know why they wanted me to come back if it wasn't just to set me up and steal my show from me.
	I don't know why.
	But that was the thanks I got for bringing 28 million viewers per week.
	Well, it went down to 17.
	Making everybody rich.
	I mean, how about that rich?
	Thanked me.
	And that's the thing about her children famous.
Truth vs. Mental Illness 00:15:40
	Huh?
	I was seeing you made all these.
	What really made me mad is that they denied me the ability to go on any of their other shows to apologize to the audience for offending people because, like I say, well, I thought Valerie Jarrett was, I say, I racially misgendered someone I assumed to be white.
	That was, you know, when I told the network, I thought she was white.
	I meant it as a political tweet and not as a racial tweet.
	What's wrong with you?
	And I- Let me just tell the audience what the tweet said because they may be confused.
	It was a late night tweet in which you wrote it.
	It was a picture of Valerie Jarrett.
	Well, it was a picture.
	A picture came across, and it was like, you know, one in the morning and I don't see so good.
	But she looked exactly like this character from a science fiction movie.
	And I captioned it.
	You captioned it.
	Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby equals VJ, Valerie Jarrett.
	You apologized.
	And I actually thought your defense was interesting where you said, I thought she was white.
	remember you tweeting, I'm not stupid.
	I wouldn't refer to a black person as the product of an ape.
	I'm not so, you know, back.
	Well, the planet of the apes.
	I thought she was white.
	Here's where everybody, they just liberals are so racist that when they hear the, just the word ape, they automatically think of a black person.
	But in reality, what it was about was about what was happening.
	in Iran because of Valerie Jarrett's Iran deal, which is now happening in our country.
	It was about a militarized police force, just like in that movie I referenced.
	That is about a militarized police force, which goes after human beings, doesn't even assume they have the right to read or speak and mass arrests them when they do.
	That was why I made reference to that movie.
	And you can see that my tweet was kind of prescient because that's exactly what's going on in our country right now or soon to be.
	And, you know, the Muslim Brotherhood that Valerie Jarrett is a part of, and so is Obama, are the ones who militarized our police force.
	That happened under Obama's watch.
	And they did it in Egypt and then they did it in Iran.
	And now they're doing it here.
	They do the same thing everywhere.
	And, you know, I'm so glad that things are starting to come to light about what was done to our country under that administration and continues under the Biden administration.
	But, you know, people are not well read enough to understand that tweet.
	And so they just go, ape equals black person because they are so completely racist.
	And in my act, I say, why didn't they let me go on the view to explain myself?
	Joy Behar has done blackface and they have no problem with that.
	Why didn't they let me go on Jimmy Kimmel?
	He's done blackface and they have no problem with that.
	Why am I not allowed to go on there and explain to people that that was not a racial tweet in any way?
	It was a political tweet about militarized police forces that are all over this country.
	And whether people want to see it or not, that is the truth.
	Let me ask you about that.
	I should say there is zero evidence that Valerie Jarrett's part of the Muslim Brotherhood.
	Never mind Barack Obama, who's not, but I understand you're trying to make a point.
	Well, they're very tight.
	I'm sorry.
	They're very tight with people who are.
	You can't deny that.
	So, but what I want to ask you is why, because I understand this too, where they, you're wrapped up in a controversy and you want to speak out about it.
	This didn't happen to me on my departure from NBC, but this happened to me when I got ripped for, quote, platforming Alex Jones.
	And I desperately wanted to just go out and say, this is what journalists do.
	Well, you know, Diane Sawyer interviewed Charles Manson.
	She interviewed the head of the KKK.
	Like we, as journalists, interview controversial people and we talk to them and we ask them tough questions and we let the audience decide.
	They wouldn't let me go out and talk about it.
	It was very frustrating.
	And I'm sure you can take your situation and times it by a thousand.
	So what was the their thought?
	Well, they totally silenced me.
	They de-platformed and silenced me so that I explained my tweet or apologize to black people to say, I've lived my whole life as a civil rights activist.
	I fought to get my crew integrated.
	I never would be on a show unless it had integrated crew.
	I fought to get black writers on every show I've done, which was really hard to do at Disney, believe it or not.
	And, you know, the fact that they would call me a racist really torques me off and I reject it.
	I don't take any of their labels.
	They're all completely fake and they're fake.
	And, you know, if you would look at the Obama guest list of how many times people from Muslim Brotherhood visited the White House, just Google it.
	Well, I mean, that's a whole other story.
	But I think.
	But in my defense, that's what I was speaking about to journalists in Iran when I tweeted that.
	And it was taken out of context in a three-month long conversation about the rights of women and particularly women, business owners, middle-class women, business owners being dismantled by the Iran deal that America made over there and also did during the Egyptian spring.
	Let me ask you a question because you got canceled about five months before I got canceled.
	And it's been about five months.
	I think I was the test case.
	They could take me down so easily that I was like, watch, everybody, nobody defended me either.
	And I said, watch, they're going to take everybody out now.
	Everybody.
	They're going to take all the comics and then they're going to take all the journalists.
	And that's what they've done.
	Yeah.
	So, so how are you feeling about it?
	And I think it was just to set it up to take Trump out.
	It was all one big thing.
	Well, you'd come out as a Trump supporter.
	I mean, the reboot had you and your character as a Trump supporter and Jackie played by Lori.
	Yeah, I didn't think that I should play a Trump supporter on the show because in real life I was.
	And I thought that was too on the head.
	So I really wanted John Goodman to be the Trump supporter, but he wouldn't.
	Nobody else would.
	So, you know, I wanted those two opinions on the show.
	So I had to defend you.
	And they targeted me from the beginning of that show, of the reboot.
	They targeted me because I like Trump because I didn't love Hillary.
	They hate when you don't love Hillary.
	But isn't it so great, the Durham report that tells us all about, you know, every everything that Hillary did to Trump and to people who like him, including me.
	And it's that whole cabal or whatever you want to call it.
	They don't want this opinion that I'm speaking and that you're speaking.
	They don't want any dissent at all.
	Yeah, you're not wrong.
	The betrayal, though, to me seems like it still looms large for you.
	I can feel your frustration and totally understand it.
	I don't feel that way.
	I honestly feel, I was talking to James O'Keefe.
	You know who he is?
	Yeah, yeah.
	He's on the program last year.
	And it's kind of the same thing happened to him, a business he built.
	But I said, well, here's how I feel right now looking back.
	I'm like, well, God took me out of there.
	He took me out of there for my own good.
	And I don't look back.
	I don't, I, it doesn't loom large for me.
	It's just who they are and what it is.
	And I tell you, I feel in my soul, I'll be around a lot longer than Hollywood.
	I can't.
	I mean, like, it's one thing to fire you.
	It's another to take your intellectual property, keep it rolling.
	It's still on TV.
	You have to watch it.
	How about that?
	And then kill me off in a drug overdose, which is really, really horrific because Glenn Quinn, who was on our show, actually died of an opioid overdose in real life.
	And to write that off and to have me do it, to insult his family that way, it just makes me sick.
	And to have done that to somebody who a large amount of working class people and other people too all over the world looked at as a mother figure who always solved every problem with love and understanding and humor to do her dirty like that.
	But as I always say, well, Disney loves killing the mother from Bambi to me.
	They do.
	They love it.
	They love it.
	That's a joke in my family.
	Even my kids are like, yeah, the mother dies.
	Of course, it's Disney.
	So the mother dies.
	Let me just show the audience that clip because we actually have that moment when the Connors came back.
	Sans Rosetta.
	Do we have to?
	I've never even seen that show.
	Oh, no.
	Then, no, we don't have to.
	Forget it.
	Forget it.
	No, let's not run it.
	There's zero desire to return.
	They give me the creeps.
	Okay.
	I feel like a cold chill up my spine knowing what they did and how many things I did to help them in their lives.
	But I know the kids lie.
	The kids, especially, they came.
	They were, they were little.
	You were like a mother figure to them.
	And then the backstabbing.
	John Goodman, I thought, I've got to ask you this because I know he came out in variety right after it happened or not long and said, I was surprised.
	No, three months after.
	Okay, three months after he said something three months after I was fired.
	He said, I was surprised.
	I was surprised.
	And that's probably all I should say about that.
	I know for a fact she's not a racist.
	So you felt it should have been more, I guess.
	Well, it was three months later.
	I mean, he made his deal.
	They all split my salary between them.
	So it doesn't mean anything that he said that.
	I mean, it might help him feel better about himself, but I just can't believe it.
	For really, I mean, I told lies for those people.
	You know what I mean?
	When you lie for people and then that's how they do you, it's just like, oh, well, walk away.
	You just have to walk away.
	It's like a sickness.
	And I don't, I'm not going to be like that in my life.
	I have never in my life purposely stepped on anybody or taken anything from anybody or hurt them on purpose when I had my wits about me.
	I believe in God and I could never, I could never look in the mirror had I done any of that.
	And at times, you know, the mistakes I've made or cruel things I've said, I've apologized for and tried to make right.
	I don't, I just don't go on like it meant nothing like, you know, years of my life being intimate friends with someone meant nothing when I got a dime extra.
	I can't believe it.
	But that's Hollywood.
	And it is an infection.
	Sometimes I say it's an infection.
	You can't heal from it.
	No, it's a disgusting, dirty industry.
	When you say you told lies for these people, what do you mean?
	I told lies for them to protect them, to help the cast.
	When I saw, yeah, the actors.
	You know, when I saw they had problems, I was like, I, you know, you need, you know, I'll help you get help and I'll cover for you.
	And I did.
	I'm not like them.
	When I give my heart and my love and my loyalty to someone, it ain't fake.
	I can't be a fake.
	If I was going around being a fake, I'd be so mentally ill.
	I couldn't remember what I said the day before who I lied to.
	I have to tell the truth or I get mentally ill.
	I can't bullshit people because I'll get mentally ill.
	I won't remember the bullshit lie I told.
	And I'll have the wrong industry.
	You know, you chose the wrong industry.
	You can't work like I didn't.
	I chose to make people laugh and feel happy and not be afraid to look at themselves closely.
	And, you know, I just went back to stand-up.
	I'm doing that again.
	And I'm going to, you know, do a podcast.
	And I'm more than thrilled to be talking about talking about real life with people who've actually gone through hell themselves and gotten over it.
	That's what people need to hear now: is like, how are we going to cope with what they're doing to us, what they've done to us, what they're doing to our country, what they're doing to these people who are coming here, what they're doing to the world.
	How are, what are we going to do?
	How are we going to handle it?
	How are we going to breathe life back into people so they can get their brains back and their souls and their hearts?
	How can we heal all the horror in the world?
	We've got to do it.
	I really relate to what you said about, you know, it separated you from them.
	And that was a good thing because I don't like cancel culture, but I also see the silver lining of it, which is generally it separates someone from a company they didn't belong at to begin with.
	These were not your friends, not your allies.
	They were fake friends and allies and supporters who wanted you to make money for them.
	That was it.
	And once you were politically problematic, they turned their backs on you.
	I can relate to that.
	And I do think ultimately you're better off.
	Well, the other separate.
	Well, I think I'm better off too.
	But like I was going to say, Sarah Gilbert was on that show, the talk.
	And it wasn't enough that she stabbed me in the back and did what she did to me there.
	But then she would go on her talk show every day and talk about how shocked she was at my racism on top of it.
	And it was every day.
	And, you know, I had done that show when she needed a guest in sweeps.
	I went on there every time she asked me in sweeps.
	And I called her up and I said, just like this, 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.
	And my son, you know, went on, he made a video and he said, if only my mom had molested little children, they would have taken her back on, you know, like they took back James Gunn, who had a thousand tweets about molesting children.
	They took him back at Disney.
	And let's not forget my son said to Sarah Gilbert.
Evil Actions and Canceled Stars 00:03:33
	They all went to dinner after he'd already copped his plea for taking advantage of minors as alleged prostitutes, which is not a thing.
	You cannot be a minor and a prostitute.
	You were the victim of a sex trafficking operation or a married man.
	You're a star.
	And they all lined up.
	The news people and the celebrities lined up, not to mention the royalty, Prince Andrew, to get back into his house for his dinner party.
	I know.
	And my son said to Sarah Gilbert, if my mother is a racist, then you shouldn't be making money on a racist work.
	Yeah, it's a good question.
	And, you know, they just tried to kill me.
	And I felt like they killed my character and my character.
	But I thought they were sending a message over the airwaves because they knew I had mental health issues.
	I thought they wanted me to kill myself.
	And all my friends did too.
	They said, they're trying to push you to suicide.
	And Norm McDonald, who was a good friend, died.
	He said, I think they're trying to push you to suicide.
	And Bob Einstein, he also died during that time.
	He was a very good friend.
	He called me.
	He said, This is just unprecedented.
	It's evil what they're doing to you.
	And it really was Joe Rogan, too.
	I mean, my friends came to me.
	My friends did come to me, real good friends, but none of them lived in Hollywood.
	You know, Monique, too.
	Monique was a very dear friend.
	A lot of black people in Hollywood that I knew, and a lot of Nation of Islam people that when I ran for president in 2012 that were on my campaign, they called me to and said, Oh, we knew we knew what was going on.
	And I said, Well, would you say something on my behalf?
	The black people said, Hell no, we're too afraid.
	We'll become targets.
	So, you know, cancel culture, it's not just cancel culture, it's murder culture.
	And they never stop either.
	They're not happy until you're unable to work and ultimately unable to live because they like that jack boot ground right in your face.
	I mean, these people are fascists, they're not progressives or any other crap they call themselves.
	They like to grind the boot right in your face in the dirt until there's nothing left of you.
	But, like I say, that isn't going to happen with me.
	Well, you're back.
	And by the way, I mean, as you're speaking, I'm thinking about Tucker Carlson, what's happening to him right now.
	It's not enough that I said to him, I said, You, I can tell all you people that have been canceled now, you it's going to be rough for a while until you one day are going to realize that God took you out of Egypt, especially on Passover.
	I realize that, and I talk about it a lot.
	I left Egypt and it happened, you know, just around Passover, too.
	And that's kind of when everybody starts getting fired if you think about it.
	These people, they're demonic and they do know about dates and they know about times of the year where they can do the worst things they do.
	But you got to look at it as God took you out of Egypt, and you might wander in the desert for a while, but pretty soon you're coming into the promised land like you never even imagined.
	It's total artistic freedom and the ability to speak to the people you want to reach with no intercessor.
	Just like when we pray, we can speak right to God with no intercessor.
When Friends Come to Your Rescue 00:07:13
	That's how I feel now.
	I can talk to people and tell them it's going to be okay.
	It's going to be okay.
	Everything's going to work out fine.
	Just around the corner, don't give up now.
	Trust me, don't give up now.
	Well, I agree with every word you just said.
	Stand by.
	I'm going to take one last break and then we'll finish up with Roseanne on what's happening now and what her next chapter looks like.
	I'm going to take one last break and then we'll finish up with Roseanne.
	What is a woman?
	I'll tell you what a woman is.
	A woman is me.
	That's what a woman is, okay?
	A woman is someone who cleans up everybody else's shit.
	That's what a woman is.
	A woman is somebody whose boots hang down to her knees with a prolapsed uterus from giving birth to five ungrateful little privileged bastards that have never had to work for anything in their whole damn lives.
	My pronouns are kiss my ass.
	Amazing.
	That's Roseanne Barr in a special for Fox Nation called Roseanne Barr, Cancel This.
	And that was the clip about what is a woman.
	Roseanne Barr, you are back.
	Oh, and I love your hat.
	She's wearing the water.
	I saw you wearing it.
	So I got it.
	I love it.
	God bless Kelly J. Keene.
	She's leading us back to truth and science and reality.
	The hat for the listening audience is Make Women Female Again, which I had on in a picture a couple of weeks ago.
	And Roseanne has a beautiful one on her head right now.
	And I recommend it to everybody because it speaks the truth.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	That's that.
	That was a nightmare too in Hollywood was that it all started with my whole problem with the 10th season.
	They put me through this gauntlet and it was all about trans issues.
	I don't know if we have time to do it to go into it, but I once took the side of little girls in a sauna against this person, Colleen Francis, who was a trans but pre-op trans, who sat in the sauna with girls between seven and 10 years old and didn't cover her penis.
	And like I say in my act, women, you've got to start covering your penises if you're around little children.
	That's my advice to women.
	We don't ask for much.
	Yeah, but she didn't.
	And the parents called the police and the university ended up taking her side, of course, against the parents and the children.
	But I took the children's side and that really made the trans hate me.
	And the first thing they asked me at Disney when I came back was to apologize to the GLBTQ community for my transphobic remarks, which I refused to do because I said, we can't tell kids that they have the right to their own bodies and then tell them that.
	What exactly are you trying to say here?
	So they went after me because of that too.
	Cause scottage waves then and theirs as well.
	So in the time we have together, how are you now?
	Like you're doing your comedy specials aired on Fox Nation.
	How are you feeling?
	How is life going for you?
	I have a joyful life.
	I have a joyful life and I am so grateful.
	My mother's 89 years old.
	I have her.
	I have five beautiful children.
	I have eight grandchildren.
	I have my health.
	I have my sanity.
	I have peace.
	I think things are funny again.
	I'm hanging out with comics at Joe Rogan's Mothership in Austin.
	They're so nice to me.
	Joe is wonderful to me.
	The audience loves my jokes and I'm just telling them off because they're young.
	And I'm telling them, you have no idea how bad it's going to get, you kids, and they love it.
	And I think I've entered into my wise old woman grandmother phase.
	And I couldn't be more blessed.
	I just thank God.
	And you are a great interviewer.
	And I'm so glad I was on your show.
	Oh, Roseanne, thank you so much for saying that.
	It's an honor to meet you.
	I'm sorry for all the shit that's been thrown your way, but I love to see you emerging.
	I'm sorry for the shit you've gone through too.
	And it's great to see the great interviewer you are with such kindness and compassion.
	Thank you.
	Lots of love.
	I hope you come back and I hope to come see you down in Austin at Joe Rogan's Club.
	That would be a thrill.
	Please do.
	Aw, lots of love to be continued.
	And we finished the show today with an update on Harry and Megan and Paparazzi Gate.
	New from NBC4 reporting in a subsequent statement provided to them by the NYPD.
	The police said on Wednesday evening, May 16th, so it was in the wee hours of Wednesday, the NYPD assisted the private security team protecting the Duke and Duchess.
	There were numerous photographers that made their transport challenging.
	Okay, not near catastrophic, but challenging.
	The Duke and Duchess arrived at their destination, and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests in regard.
	That is the NYPD dumping all over their catastrophic claims, saying they were essentially a little scared, so we helped them out.
	That's what happened.
	It's these two who are catastrophizing, trying to play on people's sympathies as Harry's over there in the UK filing lawsuits and trying to make claims that he needs to be provided with security or else.
	Page six adds, amid the scary pursuit, Harry and Megan and her mom were brought to the 19th precinct, that's on the Upper East Side, where they remained for 15 minutes, said law enforcement sources to NBC.
	The insiders claimed that with the help of cops, the trio were then brought to a taxi, safely escorted to their upper east side destination without being followed.
	They remain in New York after the harrowing occurrence, a source told page six, noting, they are still upset to say the least.
	Okay, so it took them two hours to get to the upper east side from 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan.
	Two hours.
	This is absolutely ridiculous.
	I stand by my assessment that they have made a mountain out of a molehill.
	Being a public figure can involve having your picture taken.
Safely Escorted After a Chase 00:00:49
	You should know because you orchestrate it most of the time.
	Sorry, but you invite these people into your life and there they are, whether you want them or not.
	You're fine.
	Grow up.
	Okay, thank you all so much for listening.
	Go ahead and download the show and subscribe at youtube.com and we'll talk more tomorrow.
	Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
	Mani, spice de vere, levre d'vra.

Chapters

00:00:00 Welcome to Being a Public Figure
00:13:58 The Danger of Paparazzi Chases
00:29:34 Choosing Barbarity Over Easy Solutions
00:33:30 A Life Changed on Friday Night
00:47:20 Fighting for Credit and Control
00:53:49 The Battle Behind the Show
01:09:02 Truth vs. Mental Illness
01:24:42 Evil Actions and Canceled Stars
01:28:16 When Friends Come to Your Rescue
01:35:29 Safely Escorted After a Chase