Roseanne Barr’s Character Will Die Before Reboot, Says Co-Star

Roseanne Barr will pay the ultimate price for the racist comments that got her fired from the highly rated reboot of “Roseanne” in May. Not only was she swiftly dropped from the sitcom by ABC, her eponymous television character will be killed off.

John Goodman, who plays her TV husband Dan on the show, now called “The Conners,” spilled the beans in an interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times. “I guess he’ll be mopey and sad because his wife’s dead,” he said. ABC has not revealed how the character will be written about.

The network took immediate action following Barr’s racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, former adviser to Barack Obama, denouncing it as ““abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values.” It canceled “Roseanne,” only to resurrect it, cast otherwise intact, as “The Conners.” That was done on the condition that Barr would not receive any compensation from the show.

In the interview, Goodman implied that he didn’t support ABC’s actions. “I know for a fact that she’s not a racist,” he said of Barr. “I’ll put it this way: I was surprised at the response. And that’s probably all I should say about it.”

Barr responded to the story on Tuesday, tweeting, “I thank John Goodman for speaking truth about me, despite facing certain peril from producers and network.”

“The Connors” premieres Oct. 16 on ABC.