Yahoo News Roseanne spin-off could kill off her character
John Goodman has shed some light on how Roseanne spin-off The Conners will address co-star Roseanne Barr's absence and, if true, it's sure to be controversial.
The revival of Roseanne was cancelled by ABC in spite of its ratings success earlier this year because of Barr's infamous tweet about former Obama administration official Valerie Jarrett.
However, the network reversed course by ordering a spin-off based around her remaining co-stars after Barr agreed to a deal that would prevent her from making any financial profit off of The Conners.
John Goodman has since offered some hints about how the show plans to work around her absence, telling The Sunday Times she could be written out permanently.
"It's an unknown," he teased, adding of his TV character Dan: "I guess he'll be mopey and sad because his wife's dead."
If the Roseanne Conner character is killed off, it would be somewhat ironic since Barr was hugely criticised for killing off Goodman's character Dan in the original series.
Goodman also defended his long-time co-star, stressing that although he didn't defend her tweet about Valerie Jarrett, he also does not believe that she's a racist.
"I know for a fact that she's not a racist," he said. "I'll put it this way, I was surprised at the response. And that's probably all I should say about it."
The actor also revealed that he reached out to Barr when she made the deal with ABC to allow for The Conners to move ahead without her.
"I sent her an email and thanked her for that," Goodman recalled. "I did not hear anything back, but she was going through hell at the time. And she's still going through hell."
The Conners premieres on ABC on Tuesday, October 16 at 8pm ET in the US.
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