Fox News host Shepard Smith condemned Roseanne Barr for being “racist” in a blistering opening monologue Tuesday.
“Racism is not funny and Roseanne Barr is a racist. Now her show is canceled,” Smith said, while reporting ABC’s decision to cancel “Roseanne” after the star made derogatory comments on Twitter.
ABC pulled the plug on the sitcom after Barr tweeted that former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett was a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes.” The company said her “abhorrent, repugnant” comments are “inconsistent” with the company’s values.
But Smith didn’t praise ABC for their decision, saying that it was “established knowledge” that Barr was racist before they gave the green light to the show.
“It’s not as if ABC did not know they had a show whose star was racist,” Smith said. “She tweeted about President Obama’s national security adviser in 2013. She wrote ‘Susan Rice is a man with big, swinging ape balls.’”
He cited the sitcom’s high ratings, which earned a nod from President Trump for its conservative tone (Roseanne was a Trump supporter in the show), as a reason why ABC embraced the reboot despite the star’s rocky past.
“Huge ratings but racism killed it,” Smith said. “Seems no amount of viewers or tweeting could have saved Roseanne from her racist ways. At least not this time.”
Though Barr apologized for her racist comment, ABC still decided to cancel the sitcom reboot.
[Related: Trump blamed in wake of Roseanne, Starbucks racism]
