‘A Different World’ Actor Kadeem Hardison Calls Out The Hypocrisy Of ‘Roseanne’ Reboot
Roseanne Barr’s sitcom got a reboot in 2018, but the actress was kicked off the show after making racist comments about former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett. However, Kadeem Hardison, who famously played Dwayne Wayne in A Different World, and is currently starring in Teenage Bounty Hunters, on Netflix, saw the drama coming.
Wade explained why he was shocked that the sitcom got a reboot over A Different World.
While on SiriusXM Urban View's The Clay Cane Show on August 18, Hardison was asked about A Different World reboot.
“We've been trying to do that for about a decade. The owners of the show kind of aren't interested. So until they get interested, we can't really move on it, but we've been asking them at least a decade, mainly because cast members would love to work again,” said the 55-year-old.
“We're like, ‘Yo, they rebooting stuff, can we get some of this?’ They're like, ‘No, we're not interested in that.’ And then we see them reboot Roseanne... it's like, yo, I was here. I was on the lot when Roseanne threw a telephone at your head and stormed off the set, and y'all had to shut down production.”
When asked for more details, Hardison revealed she threw the phone at the owners of the Roseanne show, “Threw a telephone at their heads, and stormed off, told them to fix it -- and broke out.”
He described the phones as “not a little iPhone, the phone out of the wall with all the buttons and all the inner columns and all... one of them big joints.”
He added, her dressing room was above her because “I let her talk me into taking the one below so she didn't have to climb the stairs. She was sweet to me. We always had a good time.”
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As for her racist comments about Valerie Jarrett, Hardison exclaimed, “I knew it was coming! I knew it was coming.”
He continued, “Nothing about anything she would do would shock me, which is all good. Some people are like that, but I was shocked when they was like,‘We're going to reboot that show.’ And I was like, word? And we've been asking... let's see how it goes. Oh, look how it went.”
He then joked, perfectly impersonating Barr, “I'm going to get a tweet from Roseanne saying ‘Shut the f*** up!’”
A Different World aired from 1987 to 1993. Roseanne aired from 1988 to 1997.
Roseanne came back in 2018, but after Barr was kicked off the show, the sitcom returned as The Conners without her and is still on the air.
Watch Hardison’s interview on SiriusXM below, where he also discusses how critics tried to downplay the success of A Different World.