Roseanne Barr Accuses YouTube of Being Communist, Threatens to Quit

Roseanne Barr has threatened to quit YouTube, seeminhly suggesting the streaming platform operates in ways akin to communism.

Barr, who has 374,000 subscribers on YouTube, launched The Roseanne Barr Podcast on the platform in June. In the premiere episode, Barr tackled "Hollywood, politicians, brainwashed Americans and the fat acceptance movement," per a description.

The podcast marked something of a comeback for Barr, who said that she was essentially banished from Hollywood in May 2018, after she tweeted that the "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby," referring to Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, who is Black.

Barr said at the time that she wouldn't have tweeted the joke had she known Jarrett was Black, and that she would have apologized on air, but ABC decided to fire her from her show, Roseanne, before she could do so. The network brought the show back as The Connors, with the comedian's lead character killed off.

Ahead of unveiling the 13th episode of her podcast this week, which featured YouTuber JP Sears and her son, Jake Pentland, Barr shared that she was mulling the idea of quitting YouTube.

Sharing a throwback photo of herself posing with late model Anna Nicole Smith on X, formerly Twitter, Barr urged fans to sign up to her newsletter in anticipation of the shakeup.

"Newsletter sign up call," she wrote. "I'll probably be leaving YouTube after their constant and absolute bulls***—sign up if you want to keep in touch and updated. Thanks again!"

An X user promoted Barr's latest podcast episode and said that the star and her guests were "heavily shadowbanned" on YouTube. "YouTube is a joke," Barr replied as she thanked the supporter for their promotional effort.

Another X user told Barr told YouTube "will censor the c*** out of you being conservative," before asking if she would consider moving her work to the streaming platform Rumble.

"Yes, they don't pay enough for me to pay for the studio and the people working on the podcast," thrice-divorced Barr responded. "I don't want to lose money I've already been divorced a bunch."

Barr later posted a link to the podcast episode herself, while warning her followers that her days on the platform were numbered.

"Enjoy before I leave commie YouTube!" Barr captioned the link.

Newsweek has contacted representatives of YouTube via email for comment.

Several conservative voices said they have had issues with YouTube. Back in June, political commentator Candace Owens, who is an outspoken critic of transgender identities, said on her podcast that YouTube had been demonetizing videos that failed to respect the preferred pronouns of others in their content.

Michael Aciman, a spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, said at the time that the company blocked advertisements on "several videos on Candace Owens' channel for violating our monetization policies, including those against hateful and derogatory content," according to NBC News.

Aciman also explained the policy could be applied against videos that "may include deliberate deadnaming or misgendering of transgender individuals." Deadnaming is the act of referring to a transgender or nonbinary person by the name they had before transitioning.

Earlier this year, Barr returned to the spotlight with her stand-up special Roseanne Barr: Cancel This! As she hit the promotional trail, Barr sat down for an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. During the interview, which went live in March, Barr spoke about everything from Nazism and Israel to vaccines and Harry Potter.

Barr was shown being served Jameson whiskey before saying: "I wrote this book called Roseannearchy and of course nobody [bought] it, even though I went on Oprah and sucked [Oprah Winfrey's] a**."

She said that she "wrote that book to help deprogram kids from the Harry Potter bulls***," before sharing that the 2011 book ended with a "chapter called 'Wherein I Kill Satan,' and I tell you how to do it."

TV personality Barr had been a staunch progressive earlier in her career, once protesting at an Occupy Wall Street rally and running for president first for the Green Party and later the Peace and Freedom party. In 2016, she voted for Donald Trump.

In July of this year, Barr's remarks about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sparked outrage across social media.

"I don't understand why everybody's Ukraine, Ukraine. Well I do understand, and that's what terrifies me," she said. "People better wake up and do some research on their own instead of buying what comes across on the screen."

Morgan responded to Barr's stance on Ukraine by pointing out that Zelensky is Jewish and "de facto, not a Nazi," prompting Barr to rant about the Ukrainian president.

"I know, but he's not a good one! Are all Jews the same? For God's sake, talk about anti-Semitic! Just cause the guy's a Jew doesn't mean he likes Jews or that he is doing anything good for the Jews. I mean, so what?" Barr said.