Tom Arnold Reacts to Ex-Wife Roseanne Barr Saying ‘Something Almost Nice’ About Him: ‘Hell Finally Froze Over Today’

Brenton BlanchetWed, October 21, 2026 at 11:04 PM UTC

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Tom Arnold; Roseanne BarrCredit: Tiffany Rose/Getty; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty -

Tom Arnold responded after ex-wife Roseanne Barr unexpectedly defended him in a new interviewIn a new interview

Barr said Arnold was “telling the truth for once” when disputing a claim about their sitcom in Chuck Lorre’s new memoir

“Hell finally froze over today,” Arnold wrote on X in response to her comments

Tom Arnold never thought he’d see the day Roseanne Barr had something nice to say about him.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday, Oct. 20, Barr, 73, addressed Chuck Lorre’s claim in his new memoir, Sitcom, that writers were encouraged to put her ex-husband’s name on Roseanne scripts “as if Tom had written them.”

Arnold, 67, who played Arnie Thomas and worked as a writer and producer on the sitcom, previously denied the claim in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. Days later, in her latest interview, Barr said that Arnold, 67, was “telling the truth for once” when he shut down Lorre’s behind-the-scenes memory.

“Unbelievably — I don’t think you’ll hear me say this often — but Tom Arnold is telling the truth for once. Talk about the paradigm switch here,” she said. “Tom Arnold is defending me. I have to thank him for that. That’s the first time he’s done something right by me in his f------ life. Thanks, Tom.”

Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr on ‘Roseanne’Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock

In response to his ex-wife and former costar, who he was married to from 1990 to 1994, Arnold shared a message on X, along with a screenshot of her remarks. “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up,” he wrote. “33 years ago I predicted I would do something so cool my 1st X Wife Roseanne would be forced to say something almost nice about me.”

He added, “Hell finally froze over today.”

Lorre, who worked as a producer on Roseanne from 1990 to 1992, wrote in his new memoir that a head writer was tasked with writing Arnold’s name on the front of scripts “as if Tom had written them.” He claimed “several other staff writers would be ordered to do this on many occasions.” Original head writer Danny Jacobson also told EW “that happened” when asked whether writers were instructed to put Arnold’s name on scripts.

Arnold disputed the allegation, telling EW that he “never would put my name on a script that [Lorre] wrote,” adding that each episode had “every writer’s fingerprints on it.”

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“I know one thing I said to Chuck early on... I said, ‘You’re in charge of the writers, but they have to have their name on a script every year. Each one of these guys.’ Because you get more money, you just get more. I want everybody to have their name on a script,” Arnold said. “We’ll write extra scripts, whatever we gotta do.”

“One friend that I really made a point, a guy named Joel Madison, who I just talked to, I don’t think Chuck liked him because he did not give him a script. It was two weeks before we were done, and I found out. I go, ‘Hey, Chuck, you’ve gotta give Joel a script. I told you you had to do that.’ He said, ‘Oh, shoot. Yeah, well, all I’ve got is this one with my name on it.’ I go, ‘Put Joel’s name on it. You’re the head writer, you make a lot of money, put his name,’” Arnold says, noting that while he asked for a writer’s name to be placed on a script he didn’t write, it was not his own name.

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Arnold worked as a writer and producer on Roseanne until Barr fired him in 1994, the same year they divorced. The sitcom originally aired on ABC from 1988 to 1997 before returning for a 10th season in 2018.

Following the show’s short-lived 2018 revival, Arnold spoke out against Barr’s support of President Donald Trump and criticized her “dangerous tweets” after ABC canceled the series. The planned 11th season was pulled when Barr, who played the titular role, sent a tweet comparing Valerie Jarrett, a former advisor to President Barack Obama, to an ape.

Elsewhere in her latest interview with THR, Barr explained where her relationships with John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf stand today after the series wrapped. Asked whether she still gets along with Goodman and Metcalf, Barr replied, “I don’t.” Barr also said Goodman declined a cameo in her new project, a self-financed sitcom called Meemaw: A Modern Day Fable.

Goodman, 74, previously told The Hollywood Reporter he hadn’t spoken to Barr “for about seven or eight years.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”