The real reason John Goodman said no to Roseanne's return: What happened between these two TV legends

Posted on Oct 21, 2026 UTC

John Goodman and Roseanne Barr were longtime costars on both Roseanne and the spin-off series The Conners, where the pair played husband and wife duo Dan and Roseanne Conner.

But things fell apart between them sometime after Barr was removed from The Conners for her racist social media post about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett in 2018.

After her very public remarks, Barr was promptly fired from the series...

...and literally killed off of the show.

At the time, Goodman said of his former costar, "I'll put it this way, I was surprised at the response [from the network]. And that's probably all I should say about it." He also said of Barr, "I know for a fact that she's not a racist."

However, in a more recent interview from just last year, though, Goodman revisited his old friendship with Barr. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter in 2025, he said, "I’d rather doubt if she wants to talk to me."

"We haven’t talked for about seven or eight years," he explained.

Now, Barr is making a return to television with her new show, Meemaw, but it appears Goodman turned down the opportunity to cameo.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Barr revealed that her son had reached out to the actor to see if he would be interested in being on the show, and he said no.

"Nobody is more brokenhearted than me. I just choose to remember the fun and the good times," she told the news outlet. "My son called Goodman and asked him to do a cameo on Meemaw and he declined."

People on social media applauded Goodman for declining the cameo and distancing himself from what they view as Roseanne's toxic political views and racist comments.

"She has gone way way way off the deep end," a redditor said.

One redditor who claimed to have written for Barr back in the day chimed in on the Reddit discussion, saying that "her behavior floored many who had worked for her." They went on to explain that she had hired so many people who would have been barred from access to the same opportunities on other shows and networks. "I don't know what happened to that person but she's gone now," they wrote.

Others think that it's all merely performative and that they must still interact with each other away from the public eye. I would say that can't be an accurate read of the situation, though, given the recent interviews both actors have given.

It has to be hard when you have such a long and storied history together, but when someone reveals their true nature to you, the best thing you can do is listen to them and act accordingly.

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