Meghan Markle and Prince Harry say they were in a near-catastrophic car chase involving paparazzi in New York City last night, but there was no car accident. But a law enforcement source says there were no car accidents.
00:16:36.960And I was in, you know, unconscious and in a coma for a few days and semi-conscious for a couple weeks.
00:16:44.540Had a brain concussion and a skull concussion.
00:16:48.900And I had to have all these skin grafts on my legs.
00:16:53.160And that, like, really, you know, like a lot of people who have, you know, really bad head injuries, it did change my life.
00:17:04.480And I went through a lot of trauma trying to heal from it.
00:17:08.220For about 10 years, I was in a lot of trauma because of, you know, head injury.
00:17:14.220That's why I feel sorry for these football players and guys that play sports and get hit in the head a lot, boxers and stuff, because it really does do damage to your life.
00:17:26.120Do you, like, it's sort of a weird question, but do you feel like you would have had the career you've had if that had not happened to you?
00:17:34.240Was there something important about that in the person you would become?
00:17:37.540Well, yeah, because I, well, you know, it changes you.
00:17:46.060But after that, I got suddenly really, you know, a lot of people who go through that kind of trauma, they either become really introspective or they start doing things that are uncharacteristic.
00:17:59.680And I started doing like kind of crazy things that I hadn't done before.
00:18:05.340I became a full-blown hippie and I'd been pretty conservative till then.
00:18:11.840So I kind of changed between night and day, you know, and I started doing full-blown hippie things like things that I would just go crazy if my kids did.
00:18:23.500And, like, I hitchhiked cross-country and just crazy, crazy, stupid things to put myself at risk.
00:18:34.460And now I look back and shudder because I'm like, why didn't you have, what happened to your instinct of self-protection?
00:18:41.840But that kind of was gone and I kept putting myself in dangerous places all the time.
00:18:46.840And, but I don't know, I just got really, um, careless and fearless.
00:18:53.680And so, uh, when I was 28 and I stepped on stage for the first time as a comic, which I always wanted to be, um, it kind of came in handy to remember being fearless and, uh, brazen.
00:20:22.640And that must've been really traumatic for him to know that that's how his mother died, that being chased by paparazzi.
00:20:28.700It must've been, and he talks about having PTSD.
00:20:31.840So that must've been really traumatic for him to relive that.
00:20:35.800And, uh, I don't think that she has, she doesn't seem to think of him too much, but I'm really on this thing where I, you know, I have two grown sons.
00:20:49.320And so, you know, I had to, uh, see the women they date and all that stuff.
00:20:53.880And it really changed my, uh, view of women.
00:20:57.160And so now I'm like really protective of guys and the women they get with, uh, I don't know.
00:21:03.280I used to be the other way, but with grown sons, you change a little, you know, you have sons, right?
00:21:16.860Well, I have to say my son, my older son, he's got a, uh, uh, wife and they have a baby and I am so happy with her.
00:21:27.380I'm telling you what I'm so happy with her.
00:21:30.280You know, after I forced my son to divorce his first wife, I had to do a lot of work to get that going.
00:21:36.380But then I took him to Jerusalem and I said, you better get over the wall and you better say a prayer that you get a good, you know, one that gets along with me.
00:21:46.860Get over there and say your prayer right now.
00:21:48.620So I forced him to go over there and, uh, he came back from the wall and I said, did you say your prayer?
00:21:53.940And he goes, yeah, I prayed that the Broncos would win the, uh, Superbowl there.
00:21:59.200And I'm like, even God can't make that happen.
00:24:12.320So all of this, like it's starting to come into focus now, like how you wound up on the stage and how you were an instant hit and like given your past and the fearlessness and the need to be funny and just sort of your irreverence.
00:24:25.700So, but before we get to that, can we just spend a minute?
00:24:28.420Because you were 18 and you found yourself pregnant and you decided to give the baby.
00:24:38.840But yeah, well, I've had sex because I don't know.
00:24:43.620I just really wanted to have sex because I thought I should because everyone else was doing it, you know, and I just wanted to know what it was like and all that like everybody else.
00:24:54.360And, uh, well, I, I read these books, never read books about anyway.
00:25:00.840I know I'm kidding, but it's, I got it backwards because I'm dyslexic, I guess.
00:25:05.720So I thought I was doing it on the safe days of my cycle.
00:25:09.480Turns out I was doing it on the most fertile days.
00:25:12.820So I had sex the first time I ever had sex.
00:25:20.260So the, the sex I had, I don't even remember it.
00:25:24.360And, uh, well, actually I do, but I'm trying not to, but anyway, I, I ended up having a baby and I gave her up for adoption and she, uh, turned 52 yesterday.
00:25:38.860And when I, and I'm very proud of her, she's a wonderful woman and she has a wonderful son, Ari Rubin, who I'm very proud of, won the state championship in chess in Colorado.
00:26:32.220And I thought, oh, God made her ear like that.
00:26:35.080So I'll be able to find her when she's 18.
00:26:38.260And I always said, and I told her when I, I got to keep her for two days and I told her, I'll see you again when you're 18 and, uh, I'll, I'll recognize you, um, from your ear.
00:26:54.060And, uh, so that's why I kept my name Roseanne Barr because in my mind I was like, I'm going to be famous and I'm going to keep my name Roseanne Barr because it's on her birth certificate and she'll be able to find me easier.
00:27:05.480So cut to, um, she's 17 and a half years old and I'm famous and she gets a phone call from the popper, from the national choir, by the way.
00:27:18.040And they say, your mother is trying to, uh, well, that's a long story, but anyway, she gets the phone call.
00:27:25.920Your mother is a famous star in Hollywood and, uh, she, she wants to meet you because see, they came to me and they said, we found your daughter.
00:27:37.700We, we paid off the somebody in Colorado records, like they just did with, um, Rihanna and Rocky to get their kid's name.
00:28:59.120I didn't know she was a Jew, which is hilarious.
00:29:01.460But then she said she looked down at the coffee table and eyes on the cover of the inquirer that sat there when she got the call.
00:29:09.500And she looked down at the inquirer and went, oh my God, because there was this, you know, fat girl on there.
00:29:16.960And, you know, she was very Texas, beautiful.
00:29:19.940She used a whole can of hairspray to get her hair foot high every day.
00:29:24.740So she's looking down and she said, all of a sudden it started getting real clear to her that she did look like that.
00:29:30.480And for me it was like, you know, I always trust, in my life I've always trusted God and I knew that I got that feeling that I would see her and that I felt that feeling was from my prayers being answered my whole life.
00:29:47.120Well, so they set up the meeting and her and her adoptive mom, who's just her other mom, I say, you know, she's, we're not going to say biological or adoptive.
00:30:02.980And so her and her mom flew to L.A. and we met in a hotel and I ran, me and my sister, we ran through the doors of this hotel.
00:30:13.100And I turned to, turned left into the cafeteria and she saw me and we were just on each other like, we just knew each other for all those years.
00:30:28.820And so the bodyguards grabbed us because we couldn't let each other go and they shoved us in the elevator.
00:30:35.720We went up to the 16th floor and we just, you know, we remembered everything that we had gone through for 17 years apart is how I can say it.
00:30:47.060She's been in my life since then and she lived with me for a while and then she moved on to start her life when she was about 26.
00:30:57.440She runs a wonderful nonprofit organization called Billion Acts of Peace.
00:31:03.160She's a wonderful person and I'm so glad that we reconnected.
00:31:09.520A lot of young girls, 18 years old, would have made a different decision, you know, would have chosen an abortion instead of to carry the baby to term and give it up, which you know is going to be emotionally tough for you.
00:31:21.680How did you think about that at the time?
00:31:23.520I knew it was going to be tough because I thought, you know, I'm never going to even know if she's alive or if she did get good parents.
00:31:31.220But I, I would always keep tabs on that Jewish and family children services there in Denver.
00:31:39.760Consider not, not going through with the pregnancy.
00:31:41.540Um, no, I lived in Utah and, uh, that, that wasn't a possibility, but even if it had been, that's not for me.
00:31:54.800I'm not, you know, I, uh, that, that's not for me.
00:31:59.100I, I, uh, I, uh, I have five kids and, uh, I said, one of my jokes is, hey, I should have stayed a Democrat because pretty soon they're going to make abortion legal up to the time they're 60 and I should have hung in there.
00:32:21.220My kids are like, you know, my four older kids are from, uh, 42 to 52 and sometimes I'd, uh, you know, really like to take them to task and my youngest is 28.
00:32:38.280And, um, I think we, I think we're way past the point where abortion should be anything that anybody thinks of because we have the technology to prevent pregnancies.
00:32:49.440And it's just barbaric that we haven't come farther than that.
00:32:53.680And it really makes me mad when they say women have the right to choose.
00:32:56.960And then the choice they're talking about is that something so barbaric.
00:33:01.080And yesterday when, you know, I say, um, you know, why don't they just, uh, clip little boys when they're born, you know, give them a vasectomy at birth that can be reversed when they grow up and get a damn job.
00:33:15.460They could do something easy like that, but instead they choose this barbarity and, um, you know, there's a lot of reasons why they're all horrible, but we should be beyond that kind of a remedy for, we shouldn't even have unwanted pregnancies.
00:33:48.060I remember, um, there was a scene in Roseanne where, uh, Jackie, you know, your sister in the sitcom was pregnant and you were in front of the, uh, little, you know, sonogram machine looking at the sonogram with her.
00:34:01.000And I remember she was like, Oh, look at, there's his little toes and there's his little spine.
00:34:05.840And you said, uh, or she said, it looks like he's wearing a hat on his head.
00:34:09.360And you said, I think we know what happened to the condom.
00:34:17.300There was so many great moments on that show.
00:34:19.100I have a couple of clips that I'll go through with you, but some of my favorites, because we watched it religiously, as I said, and that'll be our next chapter after I squeeze in a quick break.
00:34:26.480And then right back to the one and only Roseanne Barr.
00:34:39.920You're trying to figure out what's next in your life.
00:34:41.920And eventually you start doing a little comedy.
00:34:45.600You were a waitress and you decided to try your hand at standup comedy, which is very scary for any civilian out there thinking about getting up in front of a crowd and trying to make them laugh.
00:34:58.180What was the first time, like you stood up in front of people and actually told jokes with the intention of making people laugh?
00:35:04.180Well, um, I guess I was 28 and, uh, I had been a cocktail waitress for about a year and I was always joking around with the customers there.
00:35:14.460And, uh, you know, it was always in the back of my mind that I would either write comedy or perform it because it just came easy to me.
00:35:22.800And, um, uh, I had written quite a bit of, uh, funny stories for magazines and newspapers by that time.
00:35:31.940Anyway, uh, you know, um, but anyway, these guys that I was waiting on, they said, Oh, you ought to go down to this comedy club in downtown Denver, Larimer street.
00:35:42.160And I went, what don't you know, they said, yeah, there's a comedy club down there.
00:35:48.460And so I, I went, Oh my God, I got to do it.
00:35:52.260Cause I had just seen this play with my sister about Gertrude Stein.
00:35:56.160And there was this piece in the play, Pat Carroll was portraying Gertrude Stein as my favorite writer.
00:36:05.640And it said in every life there is a 28th year and it isn't always when you're 28, but it's the year where you become yourself and you start to do what you really want to do.
00:36:18.000It moved me a lot and, uh, I was 28 and, uh, so I went to the club the next week I got my husband, Bill and, uh, you know, he was funny and a writer too, had written a lot of funny things for different magazines.
00:36:33.680Like me, we were both writers and, um, I said, let's go down.
00:36:37.220Cause you know, I want to see what it's like.
00:36:39.340So we went down to the club and I watched the comics and, um, you know, arrogantly, I thought, Oh hell, I'm so much funnier than any of them.
00:36:48.420And I said, come on, Bill, we're funnier.
00:37:19.820I had, that time was my, I had four children at that time that I had given birth to, you know, my oldest one is, you know, with her other parents.
00:37:28.960But, um, yeah, so I, I was, uh, you know, during the daytime, I was raising my three kids at home and, uh, Bill was working with her.
00:37:38.420I was working in the post office and then I would start going out to clubs and then I would start going out to clubs to the comedy store.
00:40:03.640And then I started going to, uh, punk bars and they would make me do my jokes in the mosh pit.
00:40:10.760So I did that even with no microphone.
00:40:13.200I was in the, in the mosh pit going, Hey, you guys, you know, screaming.
00:40:18.500That's where I got such a loud voice from.
00:40:20.320Um, and then, uh, and then some rock and roll people let me start opening up for them.
00:40:25.480Jazz people let me start opening up for them.
00:40:27.680And, um, I, then people passing through town, um, bands like, uh, you know, uh, oh God, now I can't remember nobody's name, but Dave, the Dave Mason.
00:40:39.340And, you know, they let, they'd hire me to open for them in Denver.
00:40:43.280I know at some point somebody saw you and said, you got to come on the tonight show, which is the big break.
00:41:08.820And, you know, in my mind, it was like Mitzi Shore was the God of comedy.
00:41:13.680So I came out to the comedy store in LA, my first night on stage after four years of perfecting it.
00:41:19.940Well, really five years, 85, I came up to do my five minutes for Mitzi Shore and I killed.
00:41:28.740And, uh, Mitzi said, go do 20 minutes in the big room.
00:41:32.620And the waitresses said that had never happened before where somebody went from showcase to main room in the same night.
00:41:38.120Well, that same night, George Slaughter was there, uh, and he was, um, casting for a show he was doing about women in comedy.
00:41:47.760That very same night, he booked me to, uh, be one of the stars in his women of comedy.
00:41:53.900I think they called it girls of comedy.
00:41:56.380And when I came back two weeks later, after I went home to get my kids, I'll suit, you know, sort it out.
00:42:04.080So I could come back to LA in two weeks and stay for two weeks.
00:42:07.760The night I came back to, uh, work for George Slaughter, a guy came up to me.
00:42:13.960So I'd been in LA approximately two nights by this time.
00:42:17.620A guy came up to me and he said, Roseanne, I'm with the Tonight Show and I want to book you on Friday.
00:42:22.740And the Tonight Show at that time was like somebody coming up to a brand new comic and saying, we're going to feature you on your own HBO special on Friday.
00:42:35.040You know, it was like the biggest thing that could ever happen.
00:42:37.440And I went on Friday and my life changed.
00:42:40.720I had been out of Denver for two days, really.
00:42:43.720And, uh, my entire life changed that, that night on the Tonight Show, uh, Julio Iglesias was a guest and he asked me to open for him on an 18 city tour, which I did.
00:44:48.040This is very shortly after you started doing standup.
00:44:51.920So that it really was a meteoric rise.
00:44:54.180And then you were spotted by, uh, the people who ultimately put together the Roseanne show, correct?
00:45:00.480Like it was on your tour with Bobby Robinson that you were spotted by somebody who makes sitcoms.
00:45:05.800And this was, of course, just to remind our younger audience at the time when, you know, there were very few options when it came to like your nightly television.
00:45:14.320So to get a show, my God, it was incredibly competitive.
00:45:17.500And your show, ultimately, I'll just jump to the, you know, the, the climax had 30 million people watching it a night.
00:45:26.840There's nothing that compares in today's day and age.
00:45:30.520Well, we actually had 38 million and sometimes 44 million a week to watch it.
00:45:36.300And the thing that was amazing is there was only like three channels though, but, um, that Bill Cosby show was number one.
00:45:45.540And, um, that, that was all the rage, you know, uh, this kind of rich upper class family of professionals.
00:45:53.900And so they didn't know how my show was going to go, but I did, I knew.
00:46:01.320And, uh, that's why I wrote it, you know, because I thought there's got to be a show about real human beings and real people on TV.
00:46:08.580I thought that when I was a girl and I used to watch TV and I'm like, this is nothing like my family.
00:46:13.660Where's the, you know, this is nothing real like any family I've ever seen.
00:46:18.860So I used to have these fantasies as a girl.
00:46:21.520If I'm, you know, when I grow up, I'm going to write a show and it's going to show real stuff on it.
00:46:27.080So anyways, that's what I grew up and did.
00:46:29.620And, uh, my show became number one in unseated Cosby as I sort of knew it was going to do.
00:46:36.320And I was grateful because my prayers got answered then too.
00:53:38.860I mean, my, uh, my, um, my allegiance was to my crew because my crew to me represented the people at home who, who, you know, were my fans and the audience.
00:53:49.700And of course my real allegiance was to them because they're the ones who made the show and they're the ones who made me.
00:53:56.260So of course my allegiance was not to any network people, but to them.
00:54:01.800And still, what were the, what were the tensions?
00:54:03.640Like what, what, what kind of a hard time were they giving you?
00:54:05.880We talked a little bit about Matt Williams and them trying to sort of steal credit is, is, you know, from you, but what else?
00:54:11.280What were, what were some of the power battles?
00:54:14.640Well, they deal did steal credit and I tried to fight that.
00:54:33.900That's what the writer's guild told me.
00:54:35.800And, uh, at that time I was like, how am I going to fight this?
00:54:39.320And once they won that battle, then the next battle was, oh, now you have to say what we tell you to say, even though I was the author.
00:54:47.220And it was about my life and, uh, you know, every character in it was about my life or someone in my life, my own three children, my, my own husband, me.
00:54:57.740And, uh, then they were going to start telling me what I was going to say.
00:55:05.580And I wasn't going to play it that way because I didn't come to TV to be a caricature.
00:55:13.620I, I came to be an anti caricature of a woman, which was unheard of, of course, except for just a couple exceptions of other women who I love and admire on television.
00:55:25.940But, uh, so I, I battled that and, uh, you know, they would keep the cameras on me and I said, I need it.
00:55:33.160My lawyer said, just say, I request a line change.
00:55:36.280And so I said, I request a line change.
00:55:38.740And they said, no, you're not going to get it.
00:55:40.540Say the line as written that went on for eight hours.
00:55:43.020Um, and, uh, you know, they could, I guess they couldn't come up with a new line and then I'd say, well, do you want me to write the line?
00:55:51.840And they were really horrified that I would write the joke because it would be funny.
00:55:55.700And that's one thing they hate is funny.
00:55:57.980And, um, so then I just said, fine, I'm going to just do it.
00:56:03.900And then I just started writing and put in, put them in myself.
00:56:09.200And, uh, you know, they kept trying to break my back, but that doesn't work for, for a Jewish girl from Utah, a poor working class Jewish girl from Utah.
00:56:39.960This was after the first episode when I couldn't get created by credit or even share created by credit in my creation.
00:56:47.820I, I wrote a poster on my door and I said, these are the people that will be fired when this show goes to number one.
00:56:57.160And I put all their names down, including the network president and everybody that I didn't, you know, that I felt had screwed me over.
00:57:04.940And, uh, when the show went to number one, they were all gone, including that network president.
00:57:09.820So I just, by sheer force of will and, um, you know, I wanted to say, having grown up in an apartment house with Holocaust survivors as a girl, I am not a person that, uh, can be broken.
00:57:23.600And I don't know why, but I'm not, it must've been a little awkward when they came to visit me in your office and saw their names on a, on a kill sheet.
00:57:31.980Did anybody, did anybody see it was on the back of your door with a, you know, big X over this guy's face?
00:58:38.000But at the end of the third season, when I got rid of Matt Williams, they told me, well, he will be gone, but you'll have to wait this many days.
00:58:46.820So I counted those down and, you know, that was a fight.
00:58:50.100But, uh, when I got rid of him and I got my writers and I hired a lot of comics and people who had never had a job before as writers, um, gave a lot of writers their first job who went on to, you know, sitcom history.
00:59:06.160Um, but by the end of the third, yeah, Judd Apatow, Osweiden, um, Keck Laurie, tons of, I can't remember a million other names.
00:59:17.440Um, but at the end of the third or fourth season, I was very, very happy because I had helped to unionize the crew.
00:59:24.360And I feel like that's my greatest accomplishment that they would get benefits, not just.
00:59:30.580They really just wanted you to shut up and act and just be the actress in the lead role as opposed to the creator, the joke writer, all the things, all the things that made you a star who they solicited in the first place.
00:59:40.980And yet, despite the behind the scenes turmoil.
01:00:02.140I mean, the cast was absolutely brilliant.
01:00:05.120And one of my favorites and everyone's favorites was Laurie Metcalf, the woman who played your sister, Jackie, who I don't know if she had a comedy background or what, but this woman would make you laugh out loud every episode.
01:00:18.520And it's, it's a tough crew to hang with, you know, you're with Roseanne Barr, you're with John Goodman.
01:00:22.860And I mean, I'd hate to have to be funny in your presence.
01:00:26.120It would be intimidating and hard, but she, she bore the burden well.
01:00:29.640And in another one of my favorite scenes as a mother, myself of three, I've thought back on this many times.
01:00:35.740You know, Laurie was on Saturday Night Live for a little bit before she came on my, on my show.