Roseanne Barr, star of Roseanne and late night racist tweet rants, was having a tough time on the Internet yesterday after sending a particularly racist tweet comparing a former Obama aide to an ape.
Despite defenses from TV show hosts that equate "being a racist" with "having mental health issues" in a way that's quite offensive to people with mental health issues who nevertheless don't tweet racist things...
...a lot of people on the Internet are angry at her for her tweet.
Roseanne took to Twitter to defend herself yesterday, with a spectacularly weak explanation for her behavior.
Yes, Barr blamed... Ambien. A sleeping pill was the cause of her racist tweet, as well as her followup tweet accusing George Soros of being a Nazi officer, even though he was 9 years old when WWII broke out.
People of the Internet didn't buy her excuse, for obvious reasons, and set about mocking her.
It wasn't just regular Twitter users and the freaking dictionary that got involved. Drug manufacturer Sanofi joined in too. The past year has seen some pretty weird press releases from companies, including torch-maker Tiki Brand stating that they don't endorse racism, but this might take the prize.
Sanofi released a statement on Twitter expressly pointing out that racism is not a known side-effect of taking Ambien.
Sorry, Roseanne, the racism was inside you the whole time. Whilst Ambien does have some horrific side-effects, "including 'sleep driving' and other complex behaviors while not being fully awake (preparing and eating food, making phone calls, or having sex)," according to Sanofi's website, racism is not one of them.
Besides, even if it was, it wouldn't explain everything.
More likely, Twitter users pointed out, if Ambien did play a part in this, it was just that she was in a sedated state when she let the mask slip a little.
Which doesn't exactly get you off the hook.
