Roseanne Barr just published a personal list titled “25 things you don’t know about me” which opens with a stunning, possibly overblown, line: “1. I was raised in an Orthodox Lithuanian Jewish cult.”
There’s no telling just hop serious Barr is about her list, it’s probably a mix of real and imagined items, such as “22. I believe that G-d speaks to me through cheese.” Although it’s interesting to note she uses the hyphened version of the deity’s name. As she also does in the more solemn, “9. I talk directly to G-d within my own mind and need no intercessor.”
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And there’s also “4. I suffered a catastrophic head injury at age 16 and had auditory hallucinations, ” which can explain a lot.
There’s no doubt that the prolific, verbose comic is into religion, at least by quantity if not quality, as she reveals: “13. I have more than 3, 000 books on comparative religions and philosophy.”
But should you start admiring her purchasing decisions, she delivers this one: “15. I raised my daughters to become Zoroastrian astrologers.”
We asked Wiki for confirmation and the goddess of human knowledge said:
Barr was born in Salt Lake City, the oldest of four of a working-class Jewish family. Her father’s family were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and her maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary and Lithuania, respectively.
Her Jewish upbringing was influenced by her devoutly Orthodox Jewish maternal grandmother.
But Barr’s parents kept their Jewish heritage secret from their neighbors and were partially involved in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Barr has stated, “Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning I was a Jew; Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday afternoon we were Mormons”.
Do you understand a whole lot more now? Of course you do.
When Barr was three years old, she got Bell’s palsy on the left side of her face. Barr said, “[so] my mother called in a rabbi to pray for me, but nothing happened. Then my mother got a Mormon preacher, he prayed, and I was miraculously cured.” Years later Barr learned that Bell’s palsy was usually temporary and that the Mormon preacher came “exactly at the right time.”
At 16, Barr was hit by a car that left her with a traumatic brain injury. Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital.
This might confirm the cult thing, as well: In 1970, when Barr was 18 years old, she moved out by informing her parents she was going to visit a friend in Colorado for two weeks, but never returned. So it looks like in her mind she had been living in a cult.
