Actor Jason Mitchell, best known for his role as Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton, told Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner that he sees no wrong in Roseanne Barr.
Before the BET Awards Sunday night, Turner spoke with Mitchell on the red carpet and told the actor that a new Roseanne spinoff was coming to TV—without Roseanne Barr.
Previously, black actors had applauded ABC’s decision to get tough on Barr after she fired off a racist tweet about former Barack Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. Mitchell took another approach.
“I think it’s tough that society has come to a place where, like, we can’t even take a joke anymore, you know what I mean?” Mitchell said. “Like, I grew up on Roseanne and I don’t see no wrong on Roseanne. She’s a comedian. I mean, if we can’t take a joke, you know what I mean?”
The tweet wasn’t a joke, though. Barr apologized for it but later defended it, calling the tweet a criticism of anti-Semitism. It was also far from her first foray into needless provocation and conspiracy mongering. As the Daily Beast reported in 2017, Barr has shared links promising to expose “Kamala Harris’ Dirty Sex Secret” on her Twitter account, among other things.
“She’s retweeted transphobic comments and tirades against supposedly violent ‘Muslim Migrants’ that blare, ‘Americans Don’t Want these Savages in our towns!’” writes the Daily Beast.
Barr continued her grand apology tour yesterday, sharing a link to an interview with her friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in which she breaks down in tears and says she “lost everything.”
“I’m not a racist, I’m an idiot,” Barr said.
But back to Mitchell, who told Turner he just wanted everyone to “all get along.”
“I think we should all be able to coexist,” he said. “And in the meantime, I’ll be able to joke about it because it’s funny.”