The Five co-hosts and veteran political commentators Jeanine Pirro and Greg Gutfeld on Tuesday claimed to not know that former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett is Black—the same excuse that Roseanne Barr used to explain a racist tweet about Jarrett that cost Barr her role in the reboot of her namesake sitcom on ABC.
Barr, currently making media appearances promoting her Fox Nation stand-up special, had said in a YouTube video after getting axed in 2018 that she thought Jarrett was white. Barr still apologized, only to later say she regretted it.
Pirro on Tuesday came to Barr’s defense, essentially claiming that she’s already suffered enough.
ADVERTISEMENT
“The truth is that the woman basically said, ‘I didn’t know that she was Black,’” Pirro said. “And you know, there is such a thing as redemption. She paid a very, very dear price, and… I hope she’s more vicious than ever. Good for her.” (Barr herself told Fox host Jesse Watters on Monday that if she and her “friends who got canceled” ended up returning to the spotlight, they “were going to be even worse than we ever were.”)
After Watters facetiously reiterated Barr’s reason for the tweet, adding, “I don’t see color,” Pirro revealed in earnest that she “didn’t know.”
Co-host Geraldo Rivera was stunned by the admission. “How could you not know?” he asked, at which point Gutfeld claimed that was the case with him as well.
