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My Lives
In her explosive new book, Roseanne Arnold once again breaks the mold and does the unexpected. She's written the book that no star at the top ever dares write: she blows the lid off what it's like to make it in Hollywood from the unique perspective of being a powerful player herself. As a woman who's seen it all, who created the life she wanted without much help from anybody, Roseanne Arnold tells the unvarnished, uncensored, raw and raunchy truth about what has happened to her since "Roseanne" became a hit. The transition from stand-up stardom, when everyone knew her jokes were hers, to the world of producers and writers who thought nothing of taking credit for her material. The battles to make "Roseanne" a show about a three-dimensional woman who's in control, not a woman who's a victim. The difference between how much power everyone on the outside assumed she had, how little she did have, and how hard she had to fight to get more. Roseanne talks unflinchingly about the painful side of being who she is: dealing with her family, her past, drugs, the attacks in the press. And just like any woman who's raising children, getting a divorce, getting married, or just trying to keep it together, Roseanne talks about her personal life and her relationship with her soulmate, Tom Arnold, in ways that many of us will recognize - though even Roseanne's most mundane day ends up being unlike anyone else's. That's because there is no one else like her. And no one else could have captured on the page the tough, wise, take-no-prisoners truth that Roseanne finally tells in My Lives.
249 pages, Hardcover
First published February 9, 1994
146 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 29 reviews
June 14, 2013
I'm scared to write anything about this book because I think Roseanne would find me and possibly physically maim me and then write a poem about it, but I actually really love her so I don't want that to happen. I love you, Roseanne, please don't hurt me. Tom Arnold is weird.
May 23, 2012
The second chapter in Roseanne's Life is written in this book that is meant to uncover more about her abused childhood and troubles on her show then what she wrote in her first book. Roseanne has overcome a lot of problems and addictions in her life to get to where she is today.
Today Roseanne lives in Hawaii on a plantation farm that she believes is beneficial because she can grow food to help feed people who don't have the money for it. This book talks about her life in Hollywood and all the people she dealt with that either got in her way or helped her succeed further.
The one person who seemed to be a major force in making change happen was her, now ex-husband, Tom Arnold. The way she describes his behavior in the beginning to when they got married was, that he did not care what other people thought of him and that he said what needed to be said and done at the moment it needed to happen. In the beginning Tom helped write most of her jokes when she went on tour, he helped her with her HBO special and even helped warm up her audience for her show which he later got fired for because he was so bad. She eventually helped him get a job with her show as a writer which turned into a huge mess because none of the producers and writers wanted him on the show to begin with. They would make up excuses as to why he couldn't start.
Roseanne shows how, in the beginning, she didn't have control of her show, that it was run by "men" and they felt the lead character in the show should have been Dan. She fought with her writers and producers all the time to change the direction of her character. She was never given a credit as creator for her show, which went to Matt Williams. She hated him from the beginning because he felt it was his show and not hers.
Roseanne eventually got back her show, fired all the people she hated, and brought on Tom as a writer and producer. That eventually ended after 1994 but Tom did help her through some of the hardest parts of her life. The intervention she held with her family in Las Vages, the role of parenting to her kids, and handling the press when she wasn't able to.
Roseanne talks more about her abused childhood and how it affected her and what it did for her career and didn't. She always made sure to look out for her kids and those that helped her. This book really opens up a part of her life that she felt the news was just twisting to sell papers and magazines and I think it probably helped people to understand just what it all meant to her as both a person and celebrity. She mentions that she is glad that it helped people heal who went through some of the same things she did.
If you want to know more about her and why she acts and things the way she does, this book will shine light on all of it. Her latest show to get canceled was Roseanne's Nuts was a good look into how she thinks now. She is very involved in politics because she feels that the middle and low class citizens of America keep getting screwed over and that no one is there to stand up for them.
I will say that I am glad and surprised that the show Roseanne lasted for as long as it did. She had to put up with so many problems, not just from the network executives, producers and writers, but also the bad press for how she sung the national anthem. In the end, America still watched her show, and that proved to the networks that she was untouchable because the ratings for her show were the highest than any other show at the time and ABC wasn't about to lose that market share.
Hope you will enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to learn more about what she did for TV, watch the episode "The Independent Woman" on the PBS show "America in Primetime" (http://www.pbs.org/america-in-primeti...)
Today Roseanne lives in Hawaii on a plantation farm that she believes is beneficial because she can grow food to help feed people who don't have the money for it. This book talks about her life in Hollywood and all the people she dealt with that either got in her way or helped her succeed further.
The one person who seemed to be a major force in making change happen was her, now ex-husband, Tom Arnold. The way she describes his behavior in the beginning to when they got married was, that he did not care what other people thought of him and that he said what needed to be said and done at the moment it needed to happen. In the beginning Tom helped write most of her jokes when she went on tour, he helped her with her HBO special and even helped warm up her audience for her show which he later got fired for because he was so bad. She eventually helped him get a job with her show as a writer which turned into a huge mess because none of the producers and writers wanted him on the show to begin with. They would make up excuses as to why he couldn't start.
Roseanne shows how, in the beginning, she didn't have control of her show, that it was run by "men" and they felt the lead character in the show should have been Dan. She fought with her writers and producers all the time to change the direction of her character. She was never given a credit as creator for her show, which went to Matt Williams. She hated him from the beginning because he felt it was his show and not hers.
Roseanne eventually got back her show, fired all the people she hated, and brought on Tom as a writer and producer. That eventually ended after 1994 but Tom did help her through some of the hardest parts of her life. The intervention she held with her family in Las Vages, the role of parenting to her kids, and handling the press when she wasn't able to.
Roseanne talks more about her abused childhood and how it affected her and what it did for her career and didn't. She always made sure to look out for her kids and those that helped her. This book really opens up a part of her life that she felt the news was just twisting to sell papers and magazines and I think it probably helped people to understand just what it all meant to her as both a person and celebrity. She mentions that she is glad that it helped people heal who went through some of the same things she did.
If you want to know more about her and why she acts and things the way she does, this book will shine light on all of it. Her latest show to get canceled was Roseanne's Nuts was a good look into how she thinks now. She is very involved in politics because she feels that the middle and low class citizens of America keep getting screwed over and that no one is there to stand up for them.
I will say that I am glad and surprised that the show Roseanne lasted for as long as it did. She had to put up with so many problems, not just from the network executives, producers and writers, but also the bad press for how she sung the national anthem. In the end, America still watched her show, and that proved to the networks that she was untouchable because the ratings for her show were the highest than any other show at the time and ABC wasn't about to lose that market share.
Hope you will enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to learn more about what she did for TV, watch the episode "The Independent Woman" on the PBS show "America in Primetime" (http://www.pbs.org/america-in-primeti...)
June 16, 2011
Fair warning: I am having a hard time reviewing these books independently; in my world, the Roseanne memoir canon is treated as comparative literature.
This book is a lot dishier than Roseanne's first. She does a lot of mud-slinging about the writers & producers on her show, most of whom she hates. She also shit-talks her ex-husband Bill. A lot. He has gone from stud to dud in a few short years. (In 1989's Roseanne: My Life As A Woman he is the buckin' bronco night clerk who beds her many times a day before fading out to a background hum. In 1994, he is a greedy alcoholic pig. By her 2011 book, they have apparently reconciled, and he writes the introduction to Roseannarchy.) In this book, she has an amazing new stud: Tom Arnold. Insert gag here. Joke-gag or gag reflex-gag, whichever you choose. Predictably, Tom has turned into a dud by Roseannarchy, but ironically they are the pretty much the same reasons that she bitches about but has overlooked in My Lives. He is a cokehead, a big cokey cokehead. It is revealed in Roseannarchy that Tom stroked Roseanne's ego big-time and has her convinced that she is a queen who can do whatever the hell she wants, but in My Lives, we are in the middle of that storm. It's kind of strange, because it seems like Tom is the one who does a lot of the manipulating & maneuvering, but Roseanne is the one who takes credit for it, so maybe that's what she is referring to in her later book.
Roseanne also comes out as a sexual/physical abuse survivor who has dissociative identity disorder, although she has recanted a portion of it by 2011, and says that she is "over" or "cured" from DID in Roseannarchy. She gets pretty specific in her memories, in a potentially triggering way, so head's up there if you need it. As a result of her memories & subsequent confrontations, she has fallen out with her sisters in this book, and so she also shit-talks them. That was sad to read, because they were very close when she was living in Denver, and Geraldine especially was instrumental in her comedy career. I think by Roseannarchy they had reunited, but not before Geraldine flings her own pile of feces back at Roseanne in the uglier-yet book My Sister Roseanne, which I have also read but can't bring myself to reread.
Overall, this is probably the meanest, ugliest, maybe truest, yet most difficult to read of the Roseanne memoir canon. Thank goodness I read it for the first time in 2004 instead of its original publication year of 1994, because it would have been hard to wait more than 7 years for another Roseanne memoir, even if Roseannarchy did rehash a lot of ground that Roseanne: My Life As a Woman covered.
This book is a lot dishier than Roseanne's first. She does a lot of mud-slinging about the writers & producers on her show, most of whom she hates. She also shit-talks her ex-husband Bill. A lot. He has gone from stud to dud in a few short years. (In 1989's Roseanne: My Life As A Woman he is the buckin' bronco night clerk who beds her many times a day before fading out to a background hum. In 1994, he is a greedy alcoholic pig. By her 2011 book, they have apparently reconciled, and he writes the introduction to Roseannarchy.) In this book, she has an amazing new stud: Tom Arnold. Insert gag here. Joke-gag or gag reflex-gag, whichever you choose. Predictably, Tom has turned into a dud by Roseannarchy, but ironically they are the pretty much the same reasons that she bitches about but has overlooked in My Lives. He is a cokehead, a big cokey cokehead. It is revealed in Roseannarchy that Tom stroked Roseanne's ego big-time and has her convinced that she is a queen who can do whatever the hell she wants, but in My Lives, we are in the middle of that storm. It's kind of strange, because it seems like Tom is the one who does a lot of the manipulating & maneuvering, but Roseanne is the one who takes credit for it, so maybe that's what she is referring to in her later book.
Roseanne also comes out as a sexual/physical abuse survivor who has dissociative identity disorder, although she has recanted a portion of it by 2011, and says that she is "over" or "cured" from DID in Roseannarchy. She gets pretty specific in her memories, in a potentially triggering way, so head's up there if you need it. As a result of her memories & subsequent confrontations, she has fallen out with her sisters in this book, and so she also shit-talks them. That was sad to read, because they were very close when she was living in Denver, and Geraldine especially was instrumental in her comedy career. I think by Roseannarchy they had reunited, but not before Geraldine flings her own pile of feces back at Roseanne in the uglier-yet book My Sister Roseanne, which I have also read but can't bring myself to reread.
Overall, this is probably the meanest, ugliest, maybe truest, yet most difficult to read of the Roseanne memoir canon. Thank goodness I read it for the first time in 2004 instead of its original publication year of 1994, because it would have been hard to wait more than 7 years for another Roseanne memoir, even if Roseannarchy did rehash a lot of ground that Roseanne: My Life As a Woman covered.
October 31, 2010
Roseanne's book is an odd mix of memoir, autobiography, rant, and poetry. She writes about her childhood, her first marriage, her breaking into comedy and then TV stardom. She writes about feminism, religion, politics, parenthood, marriage, sexual abuse, and love. Unfortunately, it's not entirely cohesive and sometimes difficult to grasp because of her nonlinear (and sometimes nonsensical) style. It's decently enjoyable, but her rejection of strict structure and linear format as an entirely masculine (and therefore oppressive and incorrect) method can get pretty obnoxious.
As a writer, this book has taught me that eschewing a formal writing style in favor a more personal method does not always work out.
As a writer, this book has taught me that eschewing a formal writing style in favor a more personal method does not always work out.
January 23, 2011
This is a great autobiography by Roseanne. I love how she doesn't hold anything back in this one, especially when giving much needed and overdue credit to her sick, disgusting parents for helping mess up her head. I met Roseanne the day this book came out. She autographed it for me. She was very kind and sweet, despite what the public usually says about her. My one and only complaint with this book is that she jumps from one subject to the next, and back again with little continuity.
September 23, 2012
I really liked this book, but I think I liked her first book, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17... better. Though, in this one she had less fear of the truth, wasn't afraid to get raw, and admit not only other's shortcomings, but her own...
Again, I was struck by the fact that she was so brilliantly intelligent, yet emotionally wounded, a poetess, a feminist, a mysticist, a flower child, a mother, a queen in her own world. All of these different parts of her enveloped her and sometimes threatened to take over who was truly "Roseanne".
I was shocked, actually, how the first season she had to fight so hard to get her character to be... well, HER. She had to fight tooth and nail not to be yet another Samantha or June, not to be what the act that had GOTTEN her the show was built around. Her biggest supporters were, at that time, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf. They stood by her when the rest of the studio loathed her for speaking her mind and fighting for her own truth. And, then there was Tom Arnold, who I actually gained a little respect for after reading this.
He was with her before she was a star, her best friend, her writing partner-- a man who silently was in love with her, but she was married to an emotionally manipulative drunk, who tried to constantly use her own children against her, and actually held secret meetings with the studio brass to conspire against her, as well as The Enquirer and her own children, telling them that their mother must love her "little job" more than them because she was no longer a stay-at-home Mom. (Despite the fact that he, himself, when left to watch the kids was oft times too drunk to even get them to school...) Of course, that's different than the general consensus at that time, that he attached himself to her coattails after her fame...
Though, things with Tom weren't all roses, either. She was in denial about his coke habit, but eventually through him getting help, was able to face her denial about her own, abusive and parasitic family. And that her father molesting not only her and her sisters, but her DAUGHTER, and saying "Call it molest, I can live with that-- that's just a woman being hysterical"... well, that was just sickening.
But she seemed to have come out the other end stronger for it-- though, she was still married to Tom at the end of this book, so I don't know what happened next... but all in all, despite her ascervic (and sometimes quite raunchy) wit), beneath that is a very strong, intelligent, and LOVING person, who I hope now is doing well.
Again, I was struck by the fact that she was so brilliantly intelligent, yet emotionally wounded, a poetess, a feminist, a mysticist, a flower child, a mother, a queen in her own world. All of these different parts of her enveloped her and sometimes threatened to take over who was truly "Roseanne".
I was shocked, actually, how the first season she had to fight so hard to get her character to be... well, HER. She had to fight tooth and nail not to be yet another Samantha or June, not to be what the act that had GOTTEN her the show was built around. Her biggest supporters were, at that time, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf. They stood by her when the rest of the studio loathed her for speaking her mind and fighting for her own truth. And, then there was Tom Arnold, who I actually gained a little respect for after reading this.
He was with her before she was a star, her best friend, her writing partner-- a man who silently was in love with her, but she was married to an emotionally manipulative drunk, who tried to constantly use her own children against her, and actually held secret meetings with the studio brass to conspire against her, as well as The Enquirer and her own children, telling them that their mother must love her "little job" more than them because she was no longer a stay-at-home Mom. (Despite the fact that he, himself, when left to watch the kids was oft times too drunk to even get them to school...) Of course, that's different than the general consensus at that time, that he attached himself to her coattails after her fame...
Though, things with Tom weren't all roses, either. She was in denial about his coke habit, but eventually through him getting help, was able to face her denial about her own, abusive and parasitic family. And that her father molesting not only her and her sisters, but her DAUGHTER, and saying "Call it molest, I can live with that-- that's just a woman being hysterical"... well, that was just sickening.
But she seemed to have come out the other end stronger for it-- though, she was still married to Tom at the end of this book, so I don't know what happened next... but all in all, despite her ascervic (and sometimes quite raunchy) wit), beneath that is a very strong, intelligent, and LOVING person, who I hope now is doing well.
November 5, 2012
I absolutely love the TV show Roseanne - I still watch the reruns all the time. Well, let me clarify. I watch up until the last two seasons, with seasons 2-5 being my favorites. Those middle seasons are the best, and coincidentally that is when Tom Arnold was writing for the show (I might be off by a season or two, don't yell at me if I am). I don't think Tom Arnold is funny in the slightest, but I think most people would agree those were the funniest seasons, so he must have been doing something right. The last two seasons when Roseanne took control over everything are some of the worst shows I've ever seen on TV. I never watch those seasons, and I like to pretend they don't even exist.
So my motivation for wanting to read this was simple: I wanted to read about the show. I think Roseanne the person is crazy, but I really wanted to read this to see if she would dish about the show at all. Well, she did - but only in a few chapters and it was all about how the directors, producers and writers sucked. She mentions John Goodman and Laurie Metcalfe as being fantastic (duh!) but that's about it.
The rest of the book is a weirdly written memoir about her life, but it's impossible to follow. She jumps from one subject to another and I spent every chapter thinking "Wait, how old is she now? Is she already working on the TV show? Which guy is she married to?" There was just no rhyme or reason to the layout of this book at all. Every now and then she would talk about being sexually/emotionally/mentally/physically abused by her parents and it was heartbreaking, but then she'd switch to a tangent about feminism or the writers of the show and it would all just fall apart again.
This book was also written right after she married Tom, and so she tries to paint him in this amazing light even though she detested him later. (I have decided I want to read her latest book now, to see her new thoughts on Tom.)
And then in the final chapter she reveals she wrote this book to help other abuse victims cope with their life. Um... what? What part of this book is supposed to help anyone with ANYTHING?
This whole book is a confusing mess and I don't even know what to think about it.
So my motivation for wanting to read this was simple: I wanted to read about the show. I think Roseanne the person is crazy, but I really wanted to read this to see if she would dish about the show at all. Well, she did - but only in a few chapters and it was all about how the directors, producers and writers sucked. She mentions John Goodman and Laurie Metcalfe as being fantastic (duh!) but that's about it.
The rest of the book is a weirdly written memoir about her life, but it's impossible to follow. She jumps from one subject to another and I spent every chapter thinking "Wait, how old is she now? Is she already working on the TV show? Which guy is she married to?" There was just no rhyme or reason to the layout of this book at all. Every now and then she would talk about being sexually/emotionally/mentally/physically abused by her parents and it was heartbreaking, but then she'd switch to a tangent about feminism or the writers of the show and it would all just fall apart again.
This book was also written right after she married Tom, and so she tries to paint him in this amazing light even though she detested him later. (I have decided I want to read her latest book now, to see her new thoughts on Tom.)
And then in the final chapter she reveals she wrote this book to help other abuse victims cope with their life. Um... what? What part of this book is supposed to help anyone with ANYTHING?
This whole book is a confusing mess and I don't even know what to think about it.
October 16, 2012
Having missed seeing her show (I was busy taking care of my own children at that time and wasn't watching a lot of television), I wasn't sure what to expect. But I must have expected less because I was really surprised as I listened to Roseanne's own personal telling of her story. And I highly recommend listening to her rather than reading. Her writing style is very stream-of-consciousness and it takes hearing it in her own voice to get what she's saying. She's overcome so much to get to where she is and she doesn't pull any punches about where she came from and what she went through to attain her success. I leave this book wanting a followup to her more recent life happenings.
April 3, 2014
I read a lot of celebrity auto-bios for the sheer lol factor (the best one so far is the life and times of Suzanne Somers). Most of them are complete trash. That doesn't go to say that this one isn't, but it's compelling, hilarious trash. I read it in a day and it made me love Roseanne even more. I moved internationally and had to get rid of dozens of wonderful books, but not this one. This is the better of her two autobiographies. The other one is too incoherent to really make much sense of. Happy reading!
Want to read
February 13, 2008I really want to read this...I don't know why. I saw it up in Canada at a thrift store last year but didn't buy it because the sales tax is 12% there. I figured that it would be a penny on Amazon...and sure enough..."My Lives" is going for a penny on Amazon. I've talked about this before, but it has never worked out...I would like to do a celebrity autobiography book club. Roseanne, Courtney Love, Kimora Lee Simmons...
April 12, 2011
oh, roseanne. i'm sorry your life has been hard & unfulfilling. i'm sorry that fame & fortune will never make you happy.
read this all in one night, a quick strange gulp. i absolutely hate stand-up comedy, of all sorts, and think it's remarkably unfunny and usually offensive. so i hated the stand-up comedy parts of this book, loved the behind-the-scenes gossip, intense confessions, and every last drop of radical feminism. yay for radical feminist celebrities, we need about 2400 more of you!!
read this all in one night, a quick strange gulp. i absolutely hate stand-up comedy, of all sorts, and think it's remarkably unfunny and usually offensive. so i hated the stand-up comedy parts of this book, loved the behind-the-scenes gossip, intense confessions, and every last drop of radical feminism. yay for radical feminist celebrities, we need about 2400 more of you!!
November 28, 2014
Roseanne is a role model for myself and women everywhere...I love everything she does! Wish she would write more books about her experiences in life and love! Her childhood was so very similar to mine and the fact she used that to fuel something positive gives me great hope for my own life!
June 28, 2015
Loved it. Roseanne is smart, very funny and and honest. No punches pulled here. I had no idea what a rough life she had before she became successful. This was written while she was still with Tom Arnold..can't wait to read her recent one.
August 7, 2008
This autobio is crazy! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Astounding to read what actually goes on in the mind of this phenomenal talent.
January 23, 2009
Roseanne's almost retraction of her earlier autobiography.
July 16, 2009
I read this years ago when it came out and I remember being disappointed in it at the time. She came to town to sign copies at the grocery store!
July 11, 2010
I've read so much about Roseanne recounting/not recounting her life story that I'm not sure if this is her life's true events, but either way, I loved it. I love Roseanne.
April 2, 2013
Brilliantly written!
November 21, 2013
apparently unopened audiobook; $0.99
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 10, 2015
One of THE worst books I have ever read in my entire life.
November 30, 2018
When I saw this book in a charity shop, I was like, ‘it’s got to be done…’ and hey, maybe we can get to the bottom of what is going on in what seems to be, that mad crazy head of hers.
Actually, that’s probably not going to happen. But, it might be fun to try.
First of all, I grew up watching (and loving) the Roseanne sitcom. And a couple of years ago, I was very excited to learn (and then watch) a new series. It was everything that you knew and loved about the old show. It was sardonic, clever and the female characters were the driving force. It sarcastically played upon Roseanne being a Donald Trump supporter and surrounded by Democrats, mirroring her real life. It’s also funny, because she never used to be a Republican; she was a staunch Democrat and advocate for causes like LGBT rights.
Then at the end of the first new season, she broke the internet by comparing a black female Senior Obama adviser to an ape in a tweet. And her network cancelled the show, which then got another recent re-boot (also good) with her character killed off.
To be fair, they did give her the series, despite being already controversial as she is. She has recently tweeted derogatory things about the families of the black victims of mass shootings and of those by the police. But she still got the show, so they should have known what they were getting into. But she can’t really be a racist, can she?
Well, she does laugh at a black thalidomide child in a wheelchair and there is the unhealthy obsession that Roseanne has with Nazis. In 2009, she did a photoshoot dressed as Hitler (again, still got the show) and in this book, they crop up a couple of times. She quotes Albert Speer when it comes to her approach on decision making and apparently she was taught how to ride a bike by an ex-SS officer.
To her detriment, she was a pioneer in her field. That has to be acknowledged and her fights for retaining control of her character and show from others around her, sadly, seems like nothing has changed since the early 90s, when this book was written. She really was a champion for women’s roles in Hollywood and on TV. That they shouldn’t just be relegated to the wife/girlfriend dynamic. That they can be a driving force. It’s all going well at the beginning and then,
“Who cares if abortion is legal or not?”
Erm, Roseanne…
“You say women the women in Iran have it worse than we do. How so? They have far less rape or violence against them or their children than we do!”
Quite.
Then there is Roseanne, the medical professional. Not only does she put the highly publicized (at the time) heavy cocaine use of her partner, actor Tom Arnold, down to Attention Deficit Disorder, she reveals that she is on Prozac for Tourette’s Syndrome. Which she claims is the same as OCD.
It’s not. They are completely different things.
And most people over eat or get anorexia because of early sexual trauma. Like she did.
Essentially, her and Tom were both co-dependent users lying to one another and making really poor excuses. This is the tone of the narrative throughout. And it’s really sad.
It’s a brief and chaotic tome. Full of ridiculous claims, shitty poetry, paranoia and borderline schizophrenic rants, that are both selfish and self-absorbed.
Actually, that’s probably not going to happen. But, it might be fun to try.
First of all, I grew up watching (and loving) the Roseanne sitcom. And a couple of years ago, I was very excited to learn (and then watch) a new series. It was everything that you knew and loved about the old show. It was sardonic, clever and the female characters were the driving force. It sarcastically played upon Roseanne being a Donald Trump supporter and surrounded by Democrats, mirroring her real life. It’s also funny, because she never used to be a Republican; she was a staunch Democrat and advocate for causes like LGBT rights.
Then at the end of the first new season, she broke the internet by comparing a black female Senior Obama adviser to an ape in a tweet. And her network cancelled the show, which then got another recent re-boot (also good) with her character killed off.
To be fair, they did give her the series, despite being already controversial as she is. She has recently tweeted derogatory things about the families of the black victims of mass shootings and of those by the police. But she still got the show, so they should have known what they were getting into. But she can’t really be a racist, can she?
Well, she does laugh at a black thalidomide child in a wheelchair and there is the unhealthy obsession that Roseanne has with Nazis. In 2009, she did a photoshoot dressed as Hitler (again, still got the show) and in this book, they crop up a couple of times. She quotes Albert Speer when it comes to her approach on decision making and apparently she was taught how to ride a bike by an ex-SS officer.
To her detriment, she was a pioneer in her field. That has to be acknowledged and her fights for retaining control of her character and show from others around her, sadly, seems like nothing has changed since the early 90s, when this book was written. She really was a champion for women’s roles in Hollywood and on TV. That they shouldn’t just be relegated to the wife/girlfriend dynamic. That they can be a driving force. It’s all going well at the beginning and then,
“Who cares if abortion is legal or not?”
Erm, Roseanne…
“You say women the women in Iran have it worse than we do. How so? They have far less rape or violence against them or their children than we do!”
Quite.
Then there is Roseanne, the medical professional. Not only does she put the highly publicized (at the time) heavy cocaine use of her partner, actor Tom Arnold, down to Attention Deficit Disorder, she reveals that she is on Prozac for Tourette’s Syndrome. Which she claims is the same as OCD.
It’s not. They are completely different things.
And most people over eat or get anorexia because of early sexual trauma. Like she did.
Essentially, her and Tom were both co-dependent users lying to one another and making really poor excuses. This is the tone of the narrative throughout. And it’s really sad.
It’s a brief and chaotic tome. Full of ridiculous claims, shitty poetry, paranoia and borderline schizophrenic rants, that are both selfish and self-absorbed.
March 13, 2019
As I recall, she didn’t talk much (if at all) about her show in her first book, so I was glad she covered it at least a little bit this time around. I still wanted more though. Since I got into the show well after it went off the air, I enjoyed reading about everything that went on back then (Roseanne actually being pretty famous, her relationship with Tom Arnold, and the national anthem scandal). Other parts were just weird though and Roseanne comes across as crazy, so I found myself wondering how much of the book was actually true. She spoke so highly of Tom, I’ll be interested to see if she covers their breakup in the next book.
December 6, 2019
I didn't care for this book its mostly Roseanne when she was with tom arnald and they were on drugs and out of control
April 1, 2021
Interesting and very easy to read. Suspect that she had a great ghost writer. Her poems are very weird. Her life, if most of this is true is weird.
April 16, 2022
For an autobiography, we certainly didn't learn a whole lot. Much rambling about very little, but it moves along fast-probably because there is so little to it.
August 14, 2023
LOVED this book! I have always loved Roseanne !
July 28, 2025
I first read this when I was in middle school and I thought that she was so profound and admirable. But now, as a full grown adult, all I can say is we made the wrong person famous.
November 7, 2024
this was fun to read, and very severely bonkers, and my love for Rosie of the indeterminate surname can never be vitiated or gainsaid.
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