While not everyone within the Conner family were having the happiest moments of their lives in the aftermath of Roseanne's revival premiere, the cast and crew definitely had a reason to celebrate. The hour-long Tuesday night debut was watched by over 18 million people, and it delivered some of primetime comedy's best ratings in years. Those ratings were so good, in fact, that President Donald J. Trump personally called and congratulated Barr on her success.
Roseanne Barr appeared via phone on Good Morning America this week to talk about Roseanne's success and how everyone was reacting to the massive ratings success. George Stephanopoulos brought up the fact that Donald Trump contacted the star comedian, and she was pretty jazzed about it, even through early morning fatigue.
Well, it was pretty exciting, I'll tell you that much. They said, 'Hold please for the President of the United States of America.' That's about the most exciting thing ever. It was just very, very sweet of him to congratulate us. . . . We just kinda had a private conversation, but we talked about a lot of things. You know, he's just happy for me. I've known him for many years, and he's done a lot of nice things for me over the years. So it was just a friendly conversation about working, and television and ratings. He really understands ratings and how they measure things. That's kinda been an interest of mine, too, for a long time.
To be expected, Roseanne Barr chuckled when she mentioned the word ratings, and George Stephanopoulos humorously commented on it as well. Trump, after all, has long been known to pay close attention to stats like that, considering he used to be a TV star himself for NBC's The Apprentice. So if he's going to congratulate Roseanne right out the gate, it makes all the sense in the world for him to reach out about the crowd that tuned in.
Roseanne Barr and Donald Trump's friendship has been a subject of interest in the months leading up to Roseanne's premiere, since Barr is a public supporter, using her social media accounts to make lots of conservative political points. That aspect was something some fans were weary about, not wanting the classic sitcom to ignore all of its other winning qualities to focus on the current political climate. And though the premiere did focus on Roseanne and Jackie's yearlong feud over fictional Roseanne voting for Trump, the sitcom handled it with all the expected humor and aplomb, and everyone got friendly again. No word on whether Trump thanked Roseanne Conner for her vote.
You can check out the Good Morning America interview below.
With possibly even more impressive ratings coming in the future, Roseanne airs Tuesday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET. To see what other new and returning shows are on the way soon, head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer premiere schedule.
