Disney CEO Bob Iger told Oprah Winfrey in a new interview that it was an “easy” decision to fire Roseanne Barr from ABC and the “Roseanne” reboot, according to Fox News.
Barr was fired back in May 2018 after she tweeted racist comments about Valerie Jarrett, the former aide to President Obama. The network canceled the “Roseanne” reboot right after that, opting to create a spinoff show called “The Conners” instead.
- “It took about five minutes to know what we had to do,” Iger told Winfrey on “Super Soul Sunday,” per Fox News. “It seemed completely insensitive, completely disrespectful. It was very clear. The decision, it was easy to make.”
- “What she had done was very, very clear. I didn’t believe any context could make this better or acceptable or could result in us forgiving her. So we did it. And you also know, in today’s world, if there’s a decision to be made by you, make it — because otherwise the world will make it for you, and that’s never good.”
Flashback: Iger wrote in his memoir about the decision to fire Barr, too, according to Insider.
“We don’t have a choice here,” Iger said, according to Insider. “We have to do what’s right. Not what’s politically correct, and not what’s commercially correct. Just what’s right.”
”If any of our employees tweeted what she tweeted, they’d be immediately terminated,” Iger said. No one pushed back against his idea.