Updated

Updated · USA TODAY · Aug 12

Michael Fishman Slams 2018 Roseanne Tweet Defenders as Cancellation Debate Resurfaces 8 Years Later

Updated

Updated · USA TODAY · Aug 12

Michael Fishman Slams 2018 Roseanne Tweet Defenders as Cancellation Debate Resurfaces 8 Years Later

Q: What finally pushed Michael Fishman to break his years of silence about Roseanne Barr's infamous tweet?

What pushed Michael Fishman to speak out was the steady flood of comments he says he has received for years defending Roseanne Barr’s 2018 tweet as “just a joke” and claiming the show was canceled for “woke” reasons. He said he had tried to ignore those messages quietly for more than eight years, but decided that “turning the other cheek” was no longer helping. In his Instagram video, Fishman pointed to a recent comment as the trigger for finally responding publicly. The post argued Barr had been “backstabbed” for making the kind of joke comedians make. Fishman called that framing “ignorant and inaccurate” and said it showed people were “perpetuating a lie” and using politics as a smokescreen to excuse something indefensible. He said the deeper reason for breaking his silence was that the public had failed to learn the lesson of the incident. In his view, continued attempts to recast Barr’s tweet as harmless humor minimize the real harm of dehumanizing language. That is why he said he could no longer stay silent: not because the controversy was new, but because the misinformation and defenses kept coming daily.

3 articles · Updated · USA TODAY · Aug 12

Michael Fishman, 44, said in an Aug. 10 Instagram video that people defending Roseanne Barr’s 2018 racist tweet are “perpetuating a lie” and rewriting why ABC canceled “Roseanne.”
The “Roseanne” and “The Conners” actor said he still gets inaccurate comments daily claiming Barr was punished for a joke or by “woke” politics, adding that “there was no joke, only damage.”
ABC canceled the hit revival within hours of Barr’s 2018 post comparing former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to an offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes”; Barr later called it a “bad joke.”
The network revived the franchise without Barr as “The Conners,” with Fishman returning alongside John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf and Sara Gilbert; the spinoff ran 7 seasons before ending in 2025.
Fishman said the fight over the tweet shows the lesson was not learned, arguing that dehumanizing people is never comedy and telling future defenders to “just shut the hell up.”