Tom Arnold has been making the rounds in the aftermath of his ex-wife’s racist Twitter tirade that resulted in the sudden cancellation of her self-titled ABC sitcom. Now, in a new interview with People magazine, Arnold, who was married to the former ABC star from 1990 to 1994, reveals he wasn’t at all surprised by Roseanne’s offensive tweet, and he even described the move as self-sabotage.
“She was a ticking time bomb,” Arnold told People. “I wasn’t surprised at all by what happened. Zero. She can’t control herself.”
Barr’s ex-husband believes “the pressure was mounting” for the controversial comedian and that she wanted to sabotage the second season of the Roseanne reboot before the first writers’ meeting because she couldn’t take the stress.
Tom Arnold admitted that he hasn’t spoken to Roseanne Barr in several years, but he claims his ex suffers from mental illness.
“Of course I believe she has a mental illness. She had multiple personality disorder when we lived together.”
Last week, Tom Arnold addressed his ex-wife’s reported dissociative identity disorder in an interview with Good Morning Britain , revealing that when he was married to the Roseanne “she dealt openly and honestly with multiple personality disorder.”
“She was honest and courageous about that. So I don’t know exactly what’s going on. I know there is mental illness issues,” Tom said.
Roseanne Barr’s ex-husband, Tom Arnold, says he was ‘not surprised’ by the show’s cancellation. ‘She wanted it.’ https://t.co/c9SBNWDpBy pic.twitter.com/J8S3N84AeF
— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) May 31, 2018
Roseanne Barr publicly addressed her mental health issues in a 2011 interview with Oprah Winfrey. Barr admitted that her claims in 1991, that her father had molested her and her mother had physically abused her when she was a child, were untrue. In her retraction statement, Barr blamed her delusion about the situation on her mental illness.
“I was in a very unhappy relationship. I was prescribed numerous psychiatric drugs, incredible mixtures of psychiatric drugs to deal with the fact that I had — and still in some ways have and always will have — some mental illness. And [with] the drugs and the combination of drugs that I was given — which were some strong, strong drugs — I totally lost touch with reality in a big, big way.”
In 1991, Roseanne Barr stood before an audience of 1,000 at a Denver church and made the shocking claim.
“My name is Roseanne and I am an incest survivor.”
Barr later detailed her alleged long-buried memories of abuse to People .
“My mother abused me from the time I was an infant until I was 6 or 7 years old. She did lots of lurid things. She hurt me psychologically and physically…My father molested me until I left home at age 17.”
Roseanne’s parents, Helen and Jerry Barr, denied their daughter’s allegations. But Roseanne stood behind her claims and went so far as to have plastic surgery, in part so she would no longer look like a Barr.
“It was a way to reverse the damages,” Roseanne told Vanity Fair in 1994. “My face was so bad. Every time I looked in the mirror, I looked just like my dad, and I couldn’t take it…I just don’t want to look in the mirror and see my parents.”
Seventeen years later, during the appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show , Roseanne admitted that she deeply regretted making the false accusations against her mother and father.
“I think it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done,” Roseanne said, according to Digital Spy . “It’s the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made.”