Roseanne Barr's Ex-Husband Tom Arnold Says She Wanted 'Roseanne' to End

With ABC's cancellation of Roseanne, comedic actress Roseanne Barr's ex-husband Tom Arnold suggested Barr—who lost her show over a racist tweet—wanted her popular series to end.

"It had to happen," Arnold said Wednesday to The Hollywood Reporter. "I am going to tell you the truth, she wanted it to happen, if you saw how her tweets escalated this weekend. If it hadn't happened yesterday, this season would have been so awful for everyone every day because she would have felt like she was [being] taken advantage [of], just like when I left the show."

Barr, 65, and Arnold, 59, tied the knot in 1990 and divorced in 1994. They've since been separated 24 years. Prior to becoming romantically involved, Arnold worked as a writer on Roseanne. He suggested that ABC likely lost an estimated $1 billion due to Barr's actions, but cancelation was a necessary outcome.

ABC canceled the rating hit Tuesday, a decision that was made after Barr shared a tweet that suggested Valerie Jarrett—a former aide to President Barack Obama—looked like a product of Planet of the Apes and Muslim group. Barr, however, issued an apology for her racist remark upon receiving a wave of backlash.

"I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans," Barr tweeted Tuesday. "I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me—my joke was in bad taste."

Aside from Arnold's interview with THR, he additionally appeared on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° Wednesday to speak with Cooper about why Barr wanted to allegedly sabotage her own starring series. While he addressed Barr's history with racist tweeting and relationship with President Donald Trump, he claimed he knew the show's end near.

"I had a feeling this was going to happen when I first heard it was coming back," Arnold told Cooper. "When I read her social media in the very beginning, and I saw how she was so into the conspiracy stuff with Donald Trump and so how far gone she was, and the 'pizzagate' and Hillary is a pedophile and Obama wasn't born here, she was, you know, a 'birther,' and how crazy that was—I just knew that this would not end well."

Representatives for Arnold and Barr did not immediately return Newsweek's request for comment.