Chuck Lorre Says Roseanne Barr Resented Show's Writers

Chuck Lorre said Roseanne Barr resented having other people write dialogue for her sitcom, describing his experience on the show as marked by hostility and long workweeks. He recounted the experience on the Dinners on Me podcast, hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Lorre said Barr fundamentally disliked that writers supplied words for her to perform. He linked her attitude to her background as a stand-up comedian who had built a career on her own writing. A television series, he said, required collaboration with a writing staff. He said he worked 60- to 70-hour weeks and stayed because he feared returning to poverty and struggling to pay rent. Lorre described the atmosphere as “malice,” according to his account on the podcast. He also said the animosity extended to the writing staff generally and was not limited to him personally. Lorre worked on Roseanne for two seasons, the third and fourth, during its original ABC run from 1988 to 1997. The sitcom starred Barr and centered on the Conner family. Lorre later created television series including The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Barr offered a different account of how Lorre left the show.