Roseanne Barr’s Ex-Husband Tom Arnold Issues Blunt Response to Her Defending His ‘Roseanne’ Writing Credits

Michelle Stein October 21, 2026, 10:53 am

Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr — Matt Winkelmeyer/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images; Steven Ferdman/Getty Images

What To Know

Roseanne Barr publicly defended her ex-husband Tom Arnold after Chuck Lorre claimed Arnold was wrongly credited on Roseanne scripts.
Tom Arnold responded humorously on social media, noting it was rare for Barr to say something positive about him.
Arnold also defended himself in a separate interview.

Roseanne Barr‘s ex-husband, Tom Arnold, issued a blunt response after she publicly defended his writing credits on Roseanne.

In his new memoir, Chuck Lorre — who worked as a writer on Roseanne from 1990 to 1992 — claimed Arnold was credited on scripts written by other writers. Arnold was a writer and producer for the ’90s sitcom and also played Arnie Thomas; he was married to Barr from 1990 to 1994.

Barr spoke out in defense of her ex during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published on October 20.

“Unbelievably — I don’t think you’ll hear me say this often — but Tom Arnold is telling the truth for once,” she shared. “Talk about the paradigm switch here. Tom Arnold is defending me. I have to thank him for that. That’s the first time he’s done something right by me in his f***ing life. Thanks, Tom.”

That same day, Arnold took to X with a bold declaration.

“Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up,” he began. “33 years ago I predicted I would do something so cool my 1st X Wife Roseanne would be forced to say something almost nice about me. Hell finally froze over today.”

Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images

Meanwhile, Arnold defended himself against Lorre’s claim in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published on October 15.

“I would never would put my name on a script that [Lorre] wrote,” he insisted. “Roseanne and I sat around talking about what we wanted to do in the next season, or maybe some ideas we had that’d be fun episodes, or groundbreaking, or whatever our bulls*** was, and I’d write them down. We kind of doodled around. And then, you know, in probably June, the head writer, and the writers would come back and the show starts shooting in August.”

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Roseanne aired for 10 seasons from 1988 to 1997. In addition to Barr, the sitcom starred John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Michael Fishman, Lecy Goranson, Johnny Galecki, Natalie West, Sarah Chalke, and more.

In March 2018, the Roseanne revival premiered— however, it was cancelled that May after Barr was fired for posting a racist Tweet. A spinoff called The Conners premiered in October 2018 (sans Barr), and ran for seven seasons through April 2025.

Roseanne, streaming on Peacock; The Conners, streaming on Netflix, Pluto TV, Tubi, The Roku Channel, Sling TV, Philo, and Plex