Roseanne Barr has some pretty harsh words for her former TV son — all because he has spoken out against her racist social media post from 2018. Roseanne seems to believe that her former TV son, Michael Fishman, criticized her without actually knowing what she had said (even though it’s all over the internet).
The actor, who is now 44 years old, portrayed D.J. Conner on Roseanne. Last month, Michael said he thought the show was rightfully canceled in 2018 due to Roseanne’s racist post. She did not appear to take it well.
Michael was responding to a comment someone had written in Roseanne’s defense.
The commenter wrote that the Roseanne reboot simply got canceled because “Roseanne made the usual jokes a comedian makes, but America decided to backstab Roseanne.” Michael clearly did not agree with their take.
He said that he frequently receives comments like that one, and most of the time, he just ignores them. That day, he felt compelled to respond. He told the commenter (and his followers) that what Roseanne posted wasn’t really a joke. He had a clear reason for saying this.
“Dehumanizing people is never a joke,” he said. “See, when we’re on stage as comedians or on camera, we have the freedom to say whatever we want. But that doesn’t mean there’s no responsibility and no consequences. And the brilliant comedians help us laugh at the darkest, darkest topics. So, sadly, in this case, there was no joke. And the show was rightfully canceled.”
Still, he said he has compassion for Roseanne.
His post made his views abundantly clear. In the caption he wrote, “We can do better. I was shaped by the show I grew up on. Now I am building bigger. Words have consequences.”
At the same time, he has love for Roseanne. He just thinks she should be held accountable for what she posted. “I’ll always have compassion and love [for Roseanne], and I’ve shown it continuously and she helped the world understand that good people can make mistakes,” Michael said in the video. “But there was no joke. There was only damage and dehumanizing — and perpetuating racial tropes leads to real-world consequences.”
Meanwhile, Roseanne called him a “bigot” and suggested he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
She addressed the comments from her former TV son on the Can’t Be Censored podcast, per Page Six. According to her, she tried to talk to him about her the controversy more than once, and she felt like he still didn’t understand what she was saying.
“I told him, ‘Let me explain this to you, Michael,'” she recalled. “‘Go and f— yourself and stay f—ed until the day you die. Don’t f—ing put my name in your f—ing mouth. Shut the f— up.”
She also acted like he was only on the show because of her. “I was the only reason you were on that show,” she claimed. “They wanted to get rid of you in the reboot and I made them take you back.”
Roseanne referred to her former TV son as a “brainwashed bigot” and tried to say he “doesn’t even f—ing know what I said.”
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