Roseanne has had a long love-hate history with Tom Arnold — and he might know her better than almost anyone on the planet.
So we couldn’t help but pay attention when her ex-husband and business partner said she “wanted” to destroy her own show.
Related: ABC Might Air Roseanne Spinoff — With A Big Twist!
Speaking about how her Twitter was “a hundred percent” going to bring down the hit show, Tom told The Hollywood Reporter:
“It had to happen. And I am going to tell you the truth, she wanted it to happen, if you saw how her tweets escalated this weekend. If it hadn’t happened yesterday, this season would have been so awful for everyone every day because she would have felt like she was [being] taken advantage [of], just like when I left the show.”
Why taken advantage of?
Arnold explained to Anderson Cooper later that night:
“I feel like, from day one she didn’t get ‘created by’ credit on her own show. Which was not her fault, obviously she deserved it.”
Could she really have subconsciously sabotaged her own show?
Well, whether she wanted it deep down or not, she got it. And it was all about the tweets, something Tom (and hundreds of others who had paid attention to her Twitter account) told THR he saw coming a mile off:
“ABC lost maybe $1 billion from this; this show was grinding out money hand over fist and they lost it all because somebody didn’t say, ‘Get that phone out of her hand.’ She’s not going to go on TV and say these things. But you put that phone in her hand and she is a loose cannon.”
Arnold says he was so sure it was going to happen he even tried to intervene beforehand:
“I wrote a whole thing for her a month ago and sent it over [to the crew] that said, ‘I am going to take a step back, it was fun at first, but now I can see how much negativity there is out there and people are getting hurt and I am going to take a step back and I am hoping my fans will too.’ And then if her crazy tweets came out, she could point to that and say, ‘But I have taken a step back.'”
See, he wasn’t just talking about future problematic tweets.
Related: Roseanne Considers ‘Fighting Back’ And Insists She Is ‘Not A Racist’
Tom reminded Anderson of his ex’s other tweets even before the reboot — Pizzagate, Birtherism, etc. — and pointed out her reference to black people as apes and monkeys is not a one-time thing:
“It’s a meme that she and thousands of her alt-right fans do. They love calling black people monkeys. It’s not a one-time joke… there’s more.”
We know of course one tweet that has come to light in the past couple days:
You know this wasn’t Roseanne Barr first time calling a black woman an ape — pic.twitter.com/zGLTNE6ZPv
— GEEZY (@GRYKING) May 29, 2018
BTW, Tom did admit he might not know the new Roseanne as well anymore; the two have been divorced for 24 years after all.
The main thing he cannot understand is that she knows Donald Trump personally. She knows what a horrible human being he is, and yet she is such a strong supporter:
“She’s known Trump for 30 years like I have. She knows he’s an asshole. She is so locked in with Trump she is unable to have any introspection. It is a weird thing.”
Speaking of Trump, Tom recounted a story to Anderson about the time this man — who made sure to gloat over Roseanne’s TV ratings — called his ex “disgusting” right to his face.
See that (below):
[Image via Nicky Nelson/WENN.]
