Roseanne Barr Self-Finances Comeback Sitcom Meemaw Eight Years After ABC Firing
Roseanne Barr has paid for her own television comeback.
The 73-year-old comedian has self-financed a single-camera sitcom, meaning one shot like a film with no studio audience, titled Meemaw: A Modern Day Fable, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It is based loosely on her life in Texas Hill Country and is her first scripted series since ABC sacked her in 2018.
In Meemaw, Barr plays the matriarch of a mixed-race family who breaks the law while trying to raise money for her granddaughter’s bat mitzvah. Barr has described the character as a patriotic grandmother leading a mixed-race prepper family in Texas, meaning a household that stockpiles food and supplies for emergencies.
The family around her includes Drea de Matteo as her daughter and Omar Gooding as her son-in-law. Randy Quaid appears as a local sheriff who becomes Barr’s romantic interest.
The new show arrives eight years after a very public exit. Barr starred in the original Roseanne, which aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997, when she earned $1 million per episode. ABC revived the sitcom and then cancelled the reboot in 2018 after Barr published an offensive post about Valerie Jarrett.
That post said Jarrett looked as if the “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.” Jarrett is a former adviser to Barack Obama. Barr maintains the post was not racist and was criticism of Jarrett for being sympathetic to the Iranian regime.
After Barr’s firing, ABC retooled the series as The Conners, with Barr’s character killed off through a drug overdose. That series ran for seven seasons without her.
Meemaw was filmed in Austin, Texas, according to an October report carried by Yahoo. Barr co-wrote it with Allan Stephan, who previously worked on Roseanne and Arli$$, as reported by Variety. News of the secret shoot first surfaced in a Page Six report on 8 October 2026.
For viewers, this means there is a finished series with no channel yet. Representatives for Meemaw were in talks with distributors about the show, The Hollywood Reporter reported on 9 October. Barr had said earlier she was about to take the new comedy to market, so the next decision sits with a buyer.
