ICM Partners has dropped Roseanne Barr as a client, hours after the sitcom star sent a racist tweet that spurred ABC to cancel her top-rated sitcom.
“We are all greatly distressed by the disgraceful and unacceptable tweet from Roseanne Barr this morning,” ICM Partners said in a statement Tuesday. “What she wrote is antithetical to our core values, both as individuals and as an agency.Consequently, we have notified her that we will not represent her. Effective immediately, Roseanne Barr is no longer a client.”
Barr signed with ICM last August, just as the reboot of Roseanne went into production. Barr has long been known to hold out out-there views on politics and aspects of American culture. The actress has also been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, a character trait that was also given to her sitcom alter-ego, Roseanne Connor. But the tweet the Barr sent Tuesday morning — which she subsequently deleted and apologized for — crossed the line for ABC from politics to a purely offensive and racially charged insult. Barr slammed former Obama administration advisor Valerie Jarrett, who is African-American, by saying she was akin to a union of the Muslim Brotherhood and “Planet of the Apes.” The nature of the comment and the steamrolling criticism via social media left ABC with little choice but to part ways with the volatile star.
