Roseanne Reveals Opioid Overdose Kills Her Character on ‘The Conners’

Well, consider this mystery solved. Roseanne Barr, the fired sitcom star who was cut from the revival of her long-running show after a string of racist tweets, has revealed exactly how her character will be written off.

During an interview on gay ex-liberal Brandon Straka’s YouTube show “Walk Away,” Barr was pretty blunt about Roseanne Conner’s fate. “Oh ya, they killed her,” she said. “They have her die of an opioid overdose.”

“I wanted to show that in the show,” she said, referencing the revival season’s painkiller episode. “But I was never going to have Roseanne die of an opioid overdose. It’s so cynical and horrible. She should have died as a hero or not at all … It wasn’t enough to [fire me], they had to so cruelly insult the people who loved that family and that show.” She added, “There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s done. It’s over. There’s no fight left.”

This isn’t a surprise, considering the fact that the revival season from earlier in 2018 established that sitcom Roseanne was borderline addicted to painkillers. In fact, this is the death we called in our “10 Ways Roseanne Conner Could Die” post from a few weeks ago.

This is a swift end to a rather recent mystery. We all knew that Barr wouldn’t be part of The Conners when the Roseanne-less spinoff was announced over the summer, but we didn’t know she’d be dead until Barr’s ex-co-star John Goodman let it slip in an interview. During an interview with The Sunday Times, Goodman said that Dan Conner will “be mopey and sad because his wife’s dead.” Now we know that Roseanne will be a fictional victim of the very real opioid epidemic.

The rest of the Roseanne revival cast will all return for the new show, including Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson, Michael Fishman, as well as newer additions Emma Kenny, Ames McNamara, and Jayden Rey. Maya Lynne Robinson was added to the cast in the role of DJ’s wife.

The Conners will premiere on ABC on Tuesday, October 16.