In her first interview since the cancellation of her TV show, Roseanne Barr said she felt "horrible regret" over the racist tweet that prompted ABC to pull the plug.
"It's really hard to say this but, I didn't mean what they think I meant,'' Barr told Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on his podcast. "And that's what's so painful. But I have to face that it hurt people. When you hurt people, even unwittingly, there's no excuse."
In the now-deleted tweet, the former "Roseanne" star called Valerie Jarrett, a onetime senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, the offspring of the "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes."
ABC cancelled the hit revival almost immediately, calling Barr's statement "abhorrent" and "repugnant."
In the interview, Barr called the tweet "a huge error" and added, "I definitely feel remorse."
"I don't want to run off and blather on with excuses," Barr continued. "But I apologize to anyone who thought, or felt offended, and who thought that I meant something that I, in fact, did not mean to my own ignorance, and I, there's no excuse for that ignorance."
"I horribly regret it,'' she added. "Are you kidding? I lost everything, and I regretted it before I lost everything."
Following ABC's announcement on May 29, Barr initially went on a Twitter rant but later apologized to Jarrett and the cast and crew of her show.
She also blamed the popular sleeping pill Ambien for her actions.
"That's no excuse, but that is what was real,'' she said on the podcast.
Barr cried at times during the interview as she argued that there was no racist intent in her tweet.
"I'm a lot of things. I'm a loud mouth and all that stuff, but I'm not stupid, for God's sake. And I never would have wittingly called any black person ... say they are a monkey. I just wouldn't do that, and I didn't do that."
Castmate Sara Gilbert called the comments "abhorrent" and agreed with ABC's decision to cancel the show.
The network announced on Thursday that it has greenlit "The Conners," a spin-off that excludes Barr's character. The new show will instead revolve around the characters played by Gilbert (Darlene), John Goodman (Dan), Laurie Metcalf (Jackie), Lecy Goranson (Becky) and Michael Fishman (D.J.).
Barr is regretful of the firestorm she caused and is now hoping to move on.
"I've made myself a hate magnet,'' she said. "And as a Jew, it's just horrible. It's horrible."
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