Bob Iger: ‘Roseanne’ Cancellation “The Right Thing”

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ABC moved quickly to cancel its hit mega-hit revival Roseanne today, after the sitcom’s star Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about former President Barack Obama’s key adviser Valerie Jarrett created a firestorm.

After ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey announced the cancellation, Disney CEO Bob Iger weighed in on Twitter.

“There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing,” Iger tweeted below Dungey’s statement.

ABC’s cancellation announcement came hours after Barr said she was “leaving” Twitter after apologizing for calling Jarrett an offspring of the “Muslim Brotherhood & Planet of the Apes.”

Reaction was swift, with the show’s stars including executive producer Sara Gilbert calling Barr’s tweets “abhorrent” and Wanda Sykes, who served as a writer and consulting producer, saying she wouldn’t return for the new season.

The return of Roseanne after a two-decade hiatus was the story of the 2017-2018 TV season as the highest-rated “new” series, with a season-average 5.1 demo rating behind only NBC’s Sunday Night Football and NBC’s This Is Us.

The series was a centerpiece of the network’s upfront presentation this month in New York, with  Disney-ABC Television Group president Ben Sherwood telling advertisers to give a big round of applause to “a woman who has always done it her way.” He mentioned Roseanne several more times, telling anyone watching the presentation while playing a Roseanne Drinking Game, “You are welcome.”