Actress Roseanne Barr claims her controversial tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a White House aide during the Obama administration, was due to her taking Sanofi's insomnia drug Ambien, reports CNN.
The controversy began May 29, when Ms. Barr compared Ms. Jarrett's appearance to "Planet of the Apes" and the Muslim Brotherhood in a now-deleted tweet.
The comment set off a firestorm of criticism and led to the cancellation of her show, "Roseanne," that same day. Ms. Barr returned to Twitter to issue an apology, tweeting, "I did something unforgiveable [sic] so do not defend me. It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting."
She mentioned Ambien again in another tweet, saying, "Not giving excuses for what I did(tweeted) but I've done weird stuff while on Ambien — cracked eggs on the wall at 2am etc." Ms. Barr later deleted all references to the medication from her Twitter account.
Sanofi took a public stance against Ms. Barr's claims May 30, tweeting the following statement: "People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."