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When Julia Louis-Dreyfus was starting out her career as an actress and comedian on Saturday Night Live, she would have very likely been looking up to Roseanne Barr as one of her role models. Her very first appearance on the sketch comedy show was in September 1982.
There is a nine-year gap between them in terms of age, and Barr did have almost just as much of a career head start over her compatriot. Suffice to say the tables are well and truly turned these days, with Louis-Dreyfus being a lot more active.
Barr has barely been seen in screen roles since 2015, when she featured in two episodes of the ABC sitcom, Cristela. A number of controversies have also seen her come to the brink of being canceled, including an inappropriate tweet in 2018 that caused widespread uproar.
On the other hand, Louis-Dreyfus has not only been spoiled for choice when it comes to jobs, she has also become as prolific at winning awards as Barr herself once was. But while their paths appear to have seriously diverged, they did have a rather unpleasant crossing at one early point.
What Sparked The Beef Between Julia Louis-Dreyfus And Roseanne Barr?
The beef between Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Roseanne Barr was born when the latter was arguably at the height of her success. As a star of her very own sitcom Roseanne on ABC, she would go on to earn recognition with both a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
She also managed to make a fortune from the show, with a reported, mouthwatering salary of $20 million per season. For Louis-Dreyfus, once her apprenticeship on SNL came to an end after about three years, her next big stop was Seinfeld on NBC.
While the two shows were domiciled in different networks, they are said to have been usually filmed in the same studios. As such the respective casts would have crossed paths with each other from time to time. It was precisely this scenario that eventually led to the fallout between Louis-Dreyfus and Barr.
The drama purportedly began when Louis-Dreyfus parked her car in a spot that was usually reserved for Roseanne star Tom Arnold. At the time, Arnold was in fact also married to his co-star, Barr.
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What Role Did Tom Arnold Play In Roseanne?
According to IMDb, Roseanne “is the story of a working-class family struggling with life’s essential problems – marriage, children, money, and parents-in-law. A now-classic sitcom, the story circles around the Connor family, a family of five that includes the parents Roseanne and Dan, and the children: Becky, Darlene and D.J.. Roseanne is helped in her challenge to keep the family moving along by her single sister, Jackie and various friends.”
Roseanne Barr played the leading role of Roseanne Conner, with John Goodman starring alongside her as her husband, Dan. Their three kids were portrayed by Lecy Goranson, Sara Gilbert and Michael Fishman respectively.
Even George Clooney made the cut as part of the main cast line-up, although that was a good few years before his breakthrough role in ER. His Roseanne character was Booker Brooks, the foreman at the company Wellman Plastics, where Roseanne worked.
Tom Arnold was not a part of the very core cast members, but he enjoyed a significant role nonetheless. He played Arnie Thomas, described as the “overweight, hot-tempered but jovial friend of Dan.”
Roseanne Barr Insulted Julia Louis-Dreyfus On Late-Night Television
Tom Arnold was reportedly unimpressed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ mistake in parking on his spot. To make his feelings known, he left an expletive-ridden note on her windshield that read: “How stupid are you? Move your f****** car, you a***ole!” In return, Louis-Dreyfus enlisted the help of her Seinfeld co-stars Larry David and Jason Alexander to have a word with him about it.
It was then that Roseanne Barr appeared to take it upon herself to stand for her husband and colleague’s honor. During an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, she called Louis-Dreyfus a “b****,” and went as far as attacking Seinfeld as a show. “They think they’re doing Samuel Beckett instead of a sitcom,” she said.
As things got even more ugly, Louis-Dreyfus is also said to have later found a polaroid of someone’s backside on her car, and the word a harsh word written in soap on her windshield.
In 2018, Arnold confirmed during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live! with Andy Cohen that his ex-wife was indeed the guilty party.
He did offer up some sort of defense for his own actions, saying: “I wrote a note, [but] I didn’t know it was her car at the time.”
