Roseanne Barr: I'll be in Israel when 'The Connors' airs in America

Roseanne Barr, widely repudiated for a racist tweet in May that eventually resulted in her ABC sitcom "Roseanne" being retooled without her as "The Conners," says she plans to be out of the country when the show premieres on Oct. 16.

"Y'know what, I have an opportunity to go to Israel for a few months and study with my favorite teachers over there, and that's where I'm going to go and probably move somewhere there and study with my favorite teachers," the comedian, 65, said on her friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's weekly podcast on Sunday.

"I'm not going to curse it or bless it," she said of the revamped series, on which original cast members John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, Lecy Goranson and Michael Fishman will continue in their roles as the Conner family.

"I'm staying neutral. That's what I do," Barr said. "I'm staying neutral. I'm staying away from it [and from] wishing bad on anyone, and I don't wish good for my enemies, y'know. . . . I just stay neutral. That's what I've got to do. Because I'm a person who has some mental-health issues of depression and stuff. I got to stay in the middle or I'll go dark, and I don't want to do dark again."

Barr said her removal from "Roseanne" this spring after she had brought back the hit 1998-96 series for a 10th season was like "death. . . . You have to go through steps and there is mourning and . . . it was a death to me. The death of my character that I created that people love."

She assured, "I love my show still. . . . They can't take my show away and they can't take my 10th season away. I did it. Time to move on.

"I'm going to do something else. I'm already writing a new sitcom," she said without giving specifics. On Boteach's July 1 podcast, Barr had spoken of a possible return to television, saying, "I already have been offered so many things and I almost accepted one really good offer to go back on TV and I might do it. But we'll see."

Another reason to be out of the country when the new show airs, she said, is, "It'll tempt me. . . . I'll be like, 'I need a damn cigarette.' And every time I turn on the news, they're going [to say], 'Y'know . . . the new show is even better than the old one.' . . . And then I'll call somebody, I'll have too many drinks or something, and I'll call, like, Elon Musk" with a vulgar suggestion.

"I don't like Hollywood," Barr said. "I'm leaving California because I'm sure it’s going to fall into the sea soon."