‘Roseanne’ Star Michael Fishman Sounds Off on Fans Who Still Complain About Revival Cancellation: ‘Ignorant and Inaccurate’
“Roseanne” alum Michael Fishman didn’t mince words when responding to a fan’s complaint about the revival’s cancellation eight years later, calling the comment “ignorant and inaccurate.”
The actor, who starred on the ABC sitcom for nine seasons between 1988 and 1997, before rejoining the cast for its revival in 2018, issued the candid take on his Instagram Monday after receiving a fan comment defending Roseanne Barr.
“The reboot got canceled because Roseanne made the usual jokes a comedian makes but America decided to backstab Roseanne,” the fan comment read. “At the time the LGBTQ and woke crap took over and started destroying anything it could. Roseanne was one of the people that all of a sudden got flack for remaining to be a edgy comedian. Funny thing is even if she was racist, she had already said more egregious jokes and nobody batted an eye before.”
Fishman did not take kindly to this account of Barr’s firing and the subsequent cancellation of the “Roseanne” revival, which came after Barr compared former President Barack Obama’s advisor Valerie Jarrett to an “ape,” invoking a harmful racist trope.
In his video message, where he shared a screenshot of the comment in-question, Fishman bemoaned the fact that he gets “these kinds of ignorant and inaccurate comments daily.”
“Mostly, I try to ignore them,” he said. “For over eight years, I’ve been dealing with it quietly. Usually, I don’t respond.”
He added: “After eight years, turning the other cheek is really not helping. So, I guess the world failed to learn the lesson, so I’m going to point out — we are perpetuating a lie and people are using a political smoke screen to justify the indefensible.”
As Fishman went on, he highlighted that even Barr herself called her comment about Jarrett “indefensible,” adding, “Those justifications, they’re leading to real consequences. Real crimes situations like Trey Reed and Tasia Fortune, because dehumanizing people is never a joke.”
While Fishman acknowledged that performers are protected under the First Amendment, he defended that “doesn’t mean there’s no responsibility and no consequences.”
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“The brilliant comedians help us laugh at the darkest, darkest topics. Sadly, in this case, there was no joke,” he said. “And the show was rightfully canceled. It’s the last time I’m really [going to] go into this.”
Nonetheless, Fishman indicated that he still had love for his on-screen mom, sharing, “Good people make mistakes. And I love the one who made this mistake. I always will. I’ll always have compassion and love, and I’ve shown it continuously and she helped the world understand that good people can make mistakes.”
Still, he doubled down that there was “no joke” in this scenario, only ” damage and dehumanizing and perpetuating racial tropes.”
“And the only people who are backstabbed, we’re the people who were targeted by the statements,” he continued. “And those who became collateral damage from it.”
Before concluding his video message, Fishman suggested those still perpetuating this kind racism to “shut the hell up.”
“Be smart enough to just shut the hell up,” he noted. “Don’t finish the statement. Don’t hit send and certainly don’t rage against anybody else. Because words have real world consequences. And some of us deal with them every day. That’s freedom of speech.”
After the “Roseanne” revival was canceled in May 2018, ABC ordered a spinoff of the sitcom, titled “The Conners,” which ran for seven seasons between 2018 and 2025. Fishman appeared on four of the seasons alongside fellow “Roseanne” alums John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert and Lecy Goranson.