President Donald Trump personally phoned Roseanne Barr on Wednesday to congratulate her on her show’s impressive debut.
Details of the president’s call on Wednesday were reported by the New York Times. Axios reported that Trump recalled crossing paths with the ABC sitcom star in New York City during the phone call.
The show’s return to ABC drew 18.4 million viewers in its debut on Tuesday, blowing past industry expectations.
Barr said that she wanted the show to explore how families were struggling to reconcile differences in political opinion and why working class people voted for Trump.
She is also a Trump supporter in real life.
“IT’S OVER! HE WON! PRAYERS ANSWERED! OMG! BREXIT! USA! THE PEOPLE HAVE ASSUMED POWER OVER THE OLIGARCHS! CONGRATULATIONS, AMERICANS!” she wrote on Twitter after the shocking conclusion to the 2016 election.
In an appearance via phone on Thursday’s episode of Good Morning America, Barr recalled her conversation with President Trump and revealed their years-long friendship.
“It was pretty exciting, I’ll tell you that much,” Barr said about the call. “They said ‘Hold please for the President of the United States of America,’ and that was about the most exciting thing ever, and it was very sweet of him to congratulate us.”
“Well, you know, we just kinda had a private conversation, but we talked about a lot of things, and he’s just happy for me,” the 65-year-old Trump supporter explained. “I’ve known him for many years and he’s done a lot of nice things for me over the years and so it was just a friendly conversation about working and television and ratings … Oh yeah, he really understands ratings and how they measure things, and that’s kind of been an interest of mine too for a long time.”