The reboot of ABC's "Roseanne" was off to a great start. It was renewed for a second season after its first episode. All that came to an end on Tuesday, May 29 when ABC canceled the show just hours after a racist tweet by Roseanne Barr, the star of the show. ABC president Channing Dungey described the tweet as “repugnant and inconsistent with our values.”

After its March debut, "Roseanne" was a top show on ABC with 27 million viewers. The cancellation is costing the network millions of dollars, but officials said they had no other choice but to do the right thing.

Barr is very outspoken when it comes to her political opinions. She has compared black women to apes in the past. On Tuesday morning, Barr tweeted that a former Obama adviser, Valerie Jarrett, looked like “the Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a baby." The comedian soon found out that ABC doesn't tolerate such talk no matter how popular her show is and how much money the network is losing.

Roseanne's past remarks

Today's remark was nothing new for Roseanne.

She has written defamatory remarks about Democratic women and black women in politics in the past. She tweeted the identical thing about Susan Rice in 2013. She used the exact words in both tweets and in both apology tweets.

Reactions to the cancellation

Even if the sitcom had not been canceled, writer and consulting producer Wanda Sykes announced that she would not be working on the second season.

Sara Gilbert is a co-executive producer and plays Darlene on the show. She described her television mother's tweet as “abhorrent.” Gilbert worked hard to get the reboot. She said it was sad that the show was canceled based on the words of one cast member.

Disney CEO Bob Iger agreed that ABC did the right thing. According to Fox News, ABC would face all kinds of criticism and would have lost sponsors if the network had simply overlooked the tweet.

ICM Partners, Barr’s agency, didn't take long to announce in a statement that it was dropping her as a client, according to Variety. The agency said what the actress wrote is against the core values of the company. Before ABC canceled the sitcom, Rev. Al Sharpton had already spoken out about the tweet and had advised the network to take action.

Barr deleted the original tweet and apologized for her comments. Then she announced that she will be leaving Twitter. However, it was not enough to save the show that was already taping its second season. As of now, she has not commented on the cancellation.
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