Roseanne Barr was unaware that The Conners was coming to an end after seven seasons according to her son, Jake Pentland.
“We don’t care about cheap knockoffs. We support the real brands,” Pentland told Us Weekly on Thursday, April 24. “We only pay attention to things that matter to the American people.”
Petland, 47, had previously told TMZ on Thursday that Barr, 72, and their family didn’t watch an episode of the Roseanne spinoff after his mother was fired from the series. He added that they didn’t know the show had recently wrapped up for good.
Despite the shade, Petland claimed Barr and her family were glad that The Conners crew got seven seasons of work and that chapter of her career is now closed for good.
In 2018, ABC revived the comedy Roseanne, which aired between 1988 and 1997. Barr starred in the series alongside John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Michael Fishman and Lecy Goranson. The revival was renewed for a second season when Barr made headlines for her controversial political comments on social media.
Roseanne was subsequently canceled and ABC decided to rebrand the show as The Conners and move forward with the remaining cast. Barr’s character was killed off and the sitcom proceeded as the fictional family mourned the loss of their matriarch after a fatal overdose.
“While we wish the very best for the cast and production crew of The Conners, all of whom are deeply dedicated to their craft and were Roseanne’s cherished colleagues, we regret that ABC chose to cancel Roseanne by killing off the Roseanne Conner’s character,” Barr and her rabbi, Shmuley Boteach, told Us in a statement after the 2018 premiere. “That it was done through an opioid overdose lent an unnecessary grim and morbid dimension to an otherwise happy family show.”
Barr later revealed that after being fired from the show was too hurt to watch the sitcom.
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“I just can’t bear it, so I don’t,” Barr told The Los Angeles Times in February 2023. “When they killed my character off, that was a message to me, knowing that I’m mentally ill or have mental health issues, that they did want me to commit suicide.”
Despite Barr’s exit from the show, The Conners had a successful seven-season run. In the series finale, The Conners got a $700 check after suing the pharmaceutical company that caused Roseanne’s death.
In addition to the closure, the show also paid tribute to the fictional family. Despite often being mentioned in the final season, no footage of Barr was used in the episode. Executive producers Bruce Helford, Dave Caplan and Bruce Rasmussen explained why they opted not to use any archival clips.
“It was contractual,” Caplan told Deadline on Wednesday, April 23, as Helford added, “She was very gracious in allowing us to continue the show because she had a say in that.”
