Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Mo’Nique is coming to the defense of fellow comedian Roseanne Barr, who was fired in May from her ABC show Roseanne after comparing former Obama administration advisor Valerie Jarrett to a character in the Planet of the Apes.
“Roseanne Barr is my sister in comedy and she’s my universal sister,” Mo’Nique said in a recent interview. “And what I won’t do is throw her away for making a mistake. “
She continued, “We’ve all said and done things, baby, that we wish we could take back and swallow and say, ‘Oh.’ But when you’re in the public eye, you can’t and it’s out there. But to put the title of ‘racist’ on her…”
In a now-deleted tweet, Barr said Jarrett looked as if the “Muslim Brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.”
After backlash over the comment, Barr issued an apology, declaring that she was not racist. But just last week in a YouTube video, Barr claimed that she thought Jarrett was white.
“I thought the b**** was White!” she said in the video. “Goddamnit, I thought the b**** was White. F***!”
Monique then explained that she’s loyal to Barr because the now-disgraced comedian supported her while her show was on air.
“I remember when I had the Mo’Nique Show, and there were big, major black superstar talent that had white representatives and they told their talent, ‘That show is too black and we really don’t want you to go on there,’“ Mo’Nique said.
“But there was a white woman named Roseanne Barr that showed up for me… And they didn’t hear the conversation when the cameras wasn’t rolling…That woman was giving me some beautiful words.”
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