Roseanne Barr has broken down in her first interview since the "Roseanne" reboot was axed, expressing remorse for the racist tweet that led to the show's cancellation.
"It's really hard to say this but, I didn't mean what they think I meant," she said of her shocking tweet that was directed at Barack Obama’s former adviser, Valerie Jarrett.
"And that's what's so painful. But I have to face that it hurt people. When you hurt people even unwillingly there's no excuse.”
The comedian recorded a podcast interview with her longtime friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who released an edited transcript and audio recording.
In the interview, Barr tearfully claimed that she "never would have wittingly called any black person ... a monkey."
I have black children in my family
She spoke through tears for much of the interview, apologising to “anyone who thought, or felt offended.”
“And [anyone] who thought that I meant something that I, in fact, did not mean,” she said.
On May 29, the ABC cancelled "Roseanne" after Barr posted a tweet which has since been deleted, saying, if “muslim brotherhood had a baby with planet of the apes, it would be Ms Jarrett.” Initially, she blamed medication for her racist tweet.
In her new interview, Barr expressed remorse for the tweet, saying she had “loved ones who are African-American.”
"I have black children in my family," she said.
"I can't, I can't let 'em say these things about that, after 30 years of my putting my family and my health and my livelihood at risk to stand up for people. I'm a lot of things, a loud mouth and all that stuff. But I'm not stupid for God's sake.
"I never would have wittingly called any black person, [I would never had said] they are a monkey. I just wouldn't do that. I didn't do that. And people think that I did that and it just kills me."
She said didn't realise Jarrett was African-American, and that she didn't agree with her politics.
Barr also said that she had already regretted the tweet before the ABC called and that it wasn’t up for long before she removed it.
As the interview drew to an end, she expressed the desire to reach out to Jarrett personally to apologise.
"I've lost everything," Barr said on the podcast. "And I regretted it before I lost everything."
She said that both the ABC and her family asked her to get off Twitter when she began "Roseanne," but that she could "never stop defending Israel and the Jewish people."
The first episode of Roseanne was aired in March and was seen by more than 25 million people.
The "Roseanne" reboot didn't last long. Source: Disney ABC Television Group
