It’s been months since ABC dropped the news that The Conners will be ending with Season 7, putting it alongside many other shows canceled in 2024 whose final episodes will be hitting the 2025 premiere schedule. And during the long wait for new episodes, comedian and former Roseanne showrunner Whitney Cummings dropped the espresso-flavored bombshell that pop star and Disney vet Sabrina Carpenter originally auditioned to play Darlene’s daughter Harris when the initial revival was coming together.
The news sparked questions about why the casting team would have passed over the Girl Meets World alum when casting for the teen daughter character, but Cummings clarified that part of the story when appearing on CNN’s New Year’s Eve broadcast alongside co-hosts Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. There, Cohen inquired (perhaps in a targeted fashion) about why Cummings & Co. would have turned Carpenter down for the role, which sparked the Fast Friends host to respond with:
No one passes on Sabrina Carpenter for anything. She came in and she was not a match for a million reasons. Of course you're bringing up this drama.
To her point there, Andy Cohen has built part of his career on setting up dramatic situations, whether it's through being a producer on Bravo's Real Housewives franchise or as the host of the nightly chat show Watch What Happens Live, which often features celebs either answering or steadfastedly avoiding questions about scandalous career moments. So it was totally in line with expectations that he'd bring up Whitney Cummings' past admission that the pop star was one of the hopefuls auditioning for Roseanne's tenth season.
The Roast queen didn't fully take the bait, though, and addressed his question in a way that made it clear that it wasn't a case where Sabrina Carpenter put in a lackluster audition or did anything in particular to convince the producers to go with someone else. Rather, Cummings just plainly stated that she just plainly didn't match up with what they were looking for with Harris.
Eventual fan-fave star Emma Kenney wound up landing the role while she was still co-starring in Shameless, and while she doesn't necessarily look exactly like Sara Gilbert, I dare say her take on Harris is a more believable Conner family addition than anyone who could be described as "blonde and bubbly." It'd still be cool to live in a Sliding Doors scenario where we could see how the show would look with the "Please Please Please" singer in the Lanford clan.
After that big of clarification, Whitney Cummings joked that she probably deserves some kind of payoff from the pop star for not casting her on Roseanne ahead of its eventual transition into The Conners, since her music career might not have taken off quite so strongly had she been putting in hours on a network sitcom. As Cummings put it:
I deserve a percentage of her touring money for not hiring her. Otherwise, she would still be on that show. You’re welcome, Sabrina.
For instance, if Sabrina Carpenter was already too busy filming for The Conners' shortened, but event-sized final season, she might not have been able to film her big Nonsense Christmas special, which is currently available to stream with a Netflix subscription.
Though Cummings isn't actively part of the current Conners team, hopefully someone behind the scenes had the idea to get Carpenter involved in the final season when it filmed last year. I mean, probably not, but there's no harm in wishing.
