Laurie Metcalfe hasn’t spoken to controversial comedian Roseanne Barr since she was fired from ABC in 2018 over a series of shocking tweets.
The “Lady Bird” star reflected on her relationship with Barr and how the two hadn’t spoken in nearly a decade in an interview with The New Yorker published Monday.
Metcalfe, 70, said of their estrangement: “There’s nothing controversial about it. We just haven’t spoken since we said goodbye at the end of the reboot.”
When asked if she was angry that Barr “ruined her show,” she added, “I don’t even know how to answer.”
The “Death of a Salesman” actress and Barr co-starred on all nine seasons of “Roseanne” from 1988 to 1997.
Metcalf, who appeared on screen as the comedian’s younger sister, Jackie Harris, told The New Yorker that she was “intimidated” by Barr when they first met in 1988 because Barr was “self-inflicted.”
The two reunited in 2018 when ABC ordered a revival of the hit comedy, but the show was canceled by ABC in May of that year after Barr posted several controversial tweets, including one comparing former Barack Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to a monkey.
“Roseanne’s comments on Twitter are abhorrent, offensive and inconsistent with our values, so we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said in a statement.
Barr, now 73, later claimed that “God told her” to send the racist tweet in 2018 that ultimately derailed her career.
Metcalfe, who was starring in the Edward Albee play “Three Tall Women” in New York City at the time, said she learned on the news that “Roseanne” had been canceled.
But Metcalf and other stars of the sitcom, including John Goodman and Sara Gilbert, were invited to reappear in the rebranded “Roseanne” spinoff “The Conners” a few months later.
“There was a sense of sadness throughout the room,” Metcalfe said of returning to the world of “Roseanne” without bars.
The Conners, in which Burr’s character died of an opioid overdose, ran for seven seasons on ABC from October 2018 to April 2025.
Representatives for Mr. Metcalfe and Mr. Barr did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
Metcalfe is not the first Roseanne alum to reveal that she has not spoken to Barr since he was unceremoniously fired from ABC eight years ago.
Goodman, who starred as Burr’s on-screen husband Dan Connor in both the original sitcom and the Season 10 revival, said in a July 2025 interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he hadn’t spoken to Burr in “about seven or eight years.”
“I should rather doubt whether she wants to talk to me,” he lamented.
