Roseanne Cherrie Barr (born November 3, 1952), also known mononymously as Roseanne, is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy, going on to achieve widespread recognition for her work as the eponymous lead character on the ABC sitcom Roseanne (1988–1997; 2018), for which she received an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
Having been revived in 2018 to strong ratings, plans for further seasons of Roseanne were dropped after Barr made a tweet condemned as racist by many commentators, with Barr later referring to the tweet as a "bad joke." Her comeback comedy special, Cancel This!, was released on Fox Nation in 2023.
Early life
Barr was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to a Jewish family. She is the oldest of four children born to Helen (née Davis), a bookkeeper and cashier, and Jerome Hershel "Jerry" Barr, a salesman. Her father's family were Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire, and her maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Austria-Hungary and Lithuania. Her paternal grandfather changed his surname from "Borisofsky" to "Barr" upon entering the United States. Barr's great-grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust.
Her Jewish upbringing was influenced by her devoutly Orthodox Jewish maternal grandmother. Barr's parents kept their Jewish heritage secret from their neighbors and were partially involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Barr has stated, "Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning I was a Jew; Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday afternoon we were Mormons."
When Barr was three, she was afflicted with Bell's palsy on the left side of her face. She said, "[so] my mother called in a rabbi to pray for me, but nothing happened. Then my mother got a Mormon preacher, he prayed, and I was miraculously cured". Years later, she learned that Bell's palsy was usually temporary and that the Mormon elder came "exactly at the right time".
Barr has stated that she is on the autism spectrum. At six years old, she discovered her first public stage by lecturing at LDS churches around Utah and was elected president of a Mormon youth group.
She attended East High School. At age 16, Barr was hit by a car, and the car's hood ornament impaled her skull; the incident left her with a traumatic brain injury. Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital.
In 1970, when Barr was 18, she moved out by informing her parents that she was going to visit a friend in Colorado for two weeks, and never returned.
The following year, Barr had a baby, whom she put up for adoption. She and her daughter amicably reunited 17 years later.
Career
Stand-up comedian: 1980–1986
While in Colorado, Barr began doing stand-up gigs in clubs in Denver and other Colorado towns. She later tried out at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and went on to appear on The Tonight Show in 1985.
In 1986, she performed on a Rodney Dangerfield special and on Late Night with David Letterman, and the following year had her own HBO special called The Roseanne Barr Show, which earned her an American Comedy Award for the funniest female performer in a television special.
Barr was offered the role of Peg Bundy in Married... with Children, but turned it down. In her routine she popularized the phrase "domestic goddess" to refer to a homemaker or housewife. The success of her act led to her own series on ABC, called Roseanne.
Roseanne sitcom, film, books, and talk show: 1987–2004
In 1987, The Cosby Show executive producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner wanted to bring a "no-perks family comedy" to television. They hired Cosby writer Matt Williams to write a script about factory workers and signed Barr to play Roseanne Conner.
The October 18, 1988, premiere of the show was watched by 21.4 million households, making it the highest-rated debut of that season.
Barr became outraged when she watched the first episode of Roseanne and noticed that in the credits, Williams was listed as creator. She told Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly, "We built the show around my actual life and my kids. The 'domestic goddess', the whole thing." In the same interview, Werner said, "I don't think Roseanne, to this day, understands that this is something legislated by the Writers Guild, and it's part of what every show has to deal with. They're the final arbiters."
During the first season, Barr sought more creative control over the show, opposing Williams' authority. Barr refused to say certain lines and eventually walked off set. She threatened to quit the show if Williams did not leave. ABC let Williams go after the thirteenth episode. Barr gave Amy Sherman-Palladino and Joss Whedon their first writing jobs on Roseanne.
Roseanne ran for nine seasons from 1988 to 1997. Barr won an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a Kids' Choice Award, and three American Comedy Awards for her part in the show. Barr had crafted a "fierce working-class domestic goddess" persona in the eight years preceding her sitcom and wanted to do a realistic show about a strong mother "who was not a victim of patriarchal consumerism."
For the final two seasons, Barr earned $40 million, making her the second-highest-paid woman in show business at the time, after Oprah Winfrey.
Barbara Ehrenreich called Barr a working-class spokesperson representing "the hopeless underclass of the female sex: polyester-clad, overweight occupants of the slow track; fast-food waitresses, factory workers, housewives, members of the invisible pink-collar army; the despised, the jilted, the underpaid", but a master of "the kind of class-militant populism that the Democrats, most of them anyway, never seem to get right." Barr reportedly refused to use the term "blue collar" because she felt it masks the issue of class.
During Roseanne's final season, Barr was in negotiations between Carsey-Werner Productions and ABC executives to continue playing Roseanne Conner in a spin-off. After failed discussions with ABC as well as CBS and Fox, Carsey-Werner and Barr agreed not to continue the negotiations.
She released her autobiography in 1989, titled Roseanne—My Life As a Woman. That same year, she made her film debut in She-Devil, playing a scorned housewife, Ruth. Film critic Roger Ebert gave her a positive review saying, "Barr could have made an easy, predictable and dumb comedy at any point in the last couple of years. Instead, she took her chances with an ambitious project—a real movie. It pays off, in that Barr demonstrates that there is a core of reality inside her TV persona, a core of identifiable human feelings like jealousy and pride, and they provide a sound foundation for her comic acting."
In 1991, she voiced the baby Julie in Look Who's Talking Too. She was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
She appeared three times on Saturday Night Live from 1991 to 1994, co-hosting with then-husband Tom Arnold in 1992.
In 1994, she released a second book, My Lives. That same year, Barr became the first female comedian to host the MTV Video Music Awards on her own. She remained the only one to have done so until comedian Chelsea Handler hosted in 2010. In 1997, she made guest appearances on 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Nanny.
In 1998, she portrayed the Wicked Witch of the West in a production of The Wizard of Oz at Madison Square Garden. That same year, Barr hosted her own talk show, The Roseanne Show, which ran for two years before it was canceled in 2000.
In the summer of 2003, she took on the dual role of hosting a cooking show called Domestic Goddess and starring in a reality show called The Real Roseanne Show about hosting a cooking show. Although 13 episodes were in production, a hysterectomy brought a premature end to both projects.
In 2004, she voiced Maggie, one of the main characters in the animated film Home on the Range.
Return to stand-up, television guest appearances, and radio: 2005–2010
In 2005, she returned to stand-up comedy with a world tour and in February 2006, Barr performed her first dates in Europe as part of the Leicester Comedy Festival, England. She released her first children's DVD, Rockin' with Roseanne: Calling All Kids, that month. Barr's return to the stage culminated in an HBO Comedy Special Roseanne Barr: Blonde N Bitchin, which aired November 2006, on HBO. Two nights earlier, Barr had returned to primetime network TV with a guest spot on NBC's My Name Is Earl, playing a crazy trailer park manager.
In April 2007, Barr hosted season three of The Search for the Funniest Mom in America on Nick at Nite and in 2008, she headlined an act at the Sahara Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
From 2008 to 2013, she and partner Johnny Argent hosted a weekly radio show on Sundays, on KCAA in the Los Angeles area, called "The Roseanne and Johnny Show". From 2009 to 2010, she hosted a politically themed radio show on KPFK.
In April 2009, Barr made an appearance on Bravo's 2nd Annual A-List Awards in the opening scenes. She played Kathy Griffin's fairy godmother, granting her wish to be on the A-List for one night only. In February 2010, Barr headlined the inaugural Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival in a project of the Traverse City Film Festival. Barr appeared in Jordan Brady's documentary about stand-up comedy, I Am Comic.
Reality television, Roseanne revival and new comedy special: 2011–present
In January 2011, Barr released her third book, Roseannearchy: Dispatches from the Nut Farm.
In 2011, she appeared in a Super Bowl XLV commercial for Snickers along with comedian Richard Lewis. It was the most popular ad, based on the number of TiVo users rewinding and watching it over.
On July 13, 2011, Roseanne's Nuts, a reality show featuring Barr, boyfriend Johnny Argent, and son Jake as they run a macadamia nut and livestock farm on the Big Island of Hawaii, premiered on Lifetime, but was canceled in September of that year.
In August 2011, it was reported that Barr was working on a new sitcom with 20th Century Fox Television titled Downwardly Mobile. Eric Gilliland was attached as co-creator, writer and executive producer; Gilliland was also a writer on Roseanne. In October 2011, NBC picked up the show but later dropped it. A pilot was filmed but initially ended up being shelved by the network. Barr called her progressive politics the sole reason behind the pilot's rejection. She said she was notified that the show would not be picked up due to its being labeled "too polarizing" by network executives.
Barr was roasted by Comedy Central in August 2012. After stating that he would not, Barr's former spouse Tom Arnold appeared on the roast.
In the summer of 2014 Barr joined Keenen Ivory Wayans and Russell Peters as a judge on Last Comic Standing on NBC.
On November 28, 2014, Barr's series, Momsters: When Moms Go Bad debuted on the Investigation Discovery cable network, a network that she says she's a "little obsessed with". Barr hosts the show as herself.
On March 27, 2018, the revived, 10th season of Roseanne with the original cast premiered on ABC to high ratings. On March 30, 2018, ABC renewed the series for an 11th season, with thirteen episodes. On May 29, 2018, the series was canceled by ABC in the aftermath of a tweet widely considered to be racist. Barr and Tom Werner later came to an agreement on relinquishing her producer's stake in a spin-off titled The Conners, which ABC ordered for the fall season soon after.
In September 2022, it was announced that Barr would appear in a new comedy special, titled Cancel This! It was released on the streaming service Fox Nation on February 13, 2023.
On November 30, 2023, it was announced that Barr would star in an adult animated comedy series for The Daily Wire, titled Mr. Birchum, which was released in 2024.
Personal life
Relationships and children
Barr has been married three times and has five children. In 1970, when she was 17, she had a child, Brandi Ann Brown, whom she placed for adoption; they were later reunited. On February 4, 1974, Barr married Bill Pentland, a motel clerk she met while in Colorado. They had three children: Jessica, Jennifer, and Jake. They divorced on January 16, 1990. Four days later, on January 20, 1990, Barr married fellow comedian Tom Arnold and became known as Roseanne Arnold during the marriage. Barr had met Arnold in 1983 in Minneapolis, where he opened for her stand-up comedy act. In 1988, Barr brought Arnold onto her sitcom, Roseanne, as a writer.
Barr filed for divorce from Arnold on April 18, 1994 in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, citing irreconcilable differences. Their efforts to have children were unsuccessful.
On February 14, 1995, Barr married Ben Thomas, her one-time personal security guard, at Caesars Tahoe with a reception at Planet Hollywood. In November 1994, she became pregnant through in vitro fertilization and they had a son named Buck. The couple stayed together until 2002.
In 2002, Barr met Johnny Argent online after running a writing competition on her blog, and began dating him in 2003, after a year of phone conversations. They lived on a 46-acre (19-hectare) macadamia nut farm on the Big Island of Hawaii, which Barr purchased in 2007 for $1.78 million. Barr sold the property in October 2025 for $2.6 million and moved to Texas Hill Country. Barr has studied Kabbalah at the Kabbalah Centre and frequently comments on the discipline.
Family conflicts
Barr's sister Geraldine is a lesbian and her brother Ben is gay. Barr has said that this inspired her to introduce gay characters into her sitcom and to support same-sex marriage.
Geraldine worked as Barr's manager during the early part of her career and clashed with Barr's second husband, Tom Arnold. Barr fired Geraldine, leading Geraldine to file a $70.3 million breach of contract lawsuit in Superior Court of Los Angeles County on December 18, 1991. She said Barr promised her half the earnings from the Roseanne show as recompense for helping invent the "domestic goddess" character in 1981, and for serving as "writer, organizer, accountant, bookkeeper and confidante". Since the statute of limitations had expired, the suit was thrown out.
In a 1991 interview with People, Barr described herself as an incest survivor, accusing both of her parents of physical and sexual abuse, claims which they and Geraldine publicly denied. Melvin Belli, her parents' lawyer, said they had passed a polygraph test "with flying colors". Barr was part of an incest recovery group, something she said her parents knew about but for which they were "in denial".
On February 14, 2011, Barr and Geraldine appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show where Barr admitted the word "incest" could have been the wrong word to use and that she should have waited until her therapy was over before revealing the "darkest time" in her life. She told Oprah Winfrey, "I was in a very unhappy relationship and I was prescribed numerous psychiatric drugs ... to deal with the fact that I had some mental illness ... I totally lost touch with reality ... (and) I didn't know what the truth was ... I just wanted to drop a bomb on my family". She added that not everything was "made up", saying, "Nobody accuses their parents of abusing them without justification". Geraldine said they had not spoken for 12 years, but had reconciled.
Health problems
In the mid-1990s, Barr had multiple cosmetic surgeries performed, such as a breast reduction, tummy tuck, and a nose job. During the late 1990s, she had gastric bypass surgery.