11 Stories From Tom Arnold And Roseanne Barr's Marriage
Tom Arnold Controlled All Aspects Of Her Life
Photo: Roseanne / ABCArnold famously and loudly claimed that Barr was crazy, but there was no denying that he was intensely controlling. When they first started seeing each other romantically, Tom coerced her into severing nearly all significant ties in her life. He fired or made her let go of her manager. She severed ties with family, including her ex-husband and father of her children, and her sister. Arnold took over as her manager, as producer of her show Roseanne, and as co-writer for her standup material. Barr’s blackballing of her former colleagues and family led to two lawsuits. Her former manager Arlyne Rothberg sued her for $15 million for the future earnings she would have received for deals she passed. Barr’s first husband, Bill Pentland, sued her for $15 million, too, as well as $3 million from Arnold.
There's A Filthy Story Behind The Design Of Their Wedding Rings
Shortly after Barr and Arnold were married, Vanity Fair did a very interesting feature story on the happy couple, and plastered them on the cover with ample campy abandon. In the interview, Tom and Roseanne explained the story behind their diamond engagement rings. “Our engagement rings have six diamonds around the outside,” Arnold said. “For each year of our friendship. The yellow diamond in the middle is for when we had sex.” Barr emphasized his point by saying: “The center diamond is for when we f*cked.”
Vanity Fair Admitted The Feature Was A Regret
Photo: Annie Leibovitz / Vanity FairIn 1990, nearly one year into Arnold and Barr’s marriage, their Vanity Fair cover hit news stands. Usually, when you think of Vanity Fair covers, you think of glamour and taste, but this was emphatically neither. Barr is pictured with her buxom bosom spilling out onto Arnold’s chest as she straddles him, "Roseanne on Top" plastered across the front. Years later, the magazine itself stated that cover photo and the images in the feature were one of the publication’s more regrettable decisions:
“It is a squirm-inducing portrait in which the two are rolling around in mud amid what can only be imagined as a pig trough for humans. And while there is little doubt that the shock fetishists loved their Annie Leibovitz shoot, readers were perhaps wondering why we turned two people into pork."
They Didn’t Have The Most Romantic Justification For Getting Married
Arnold and Barr knew each other for years before deciding to get married, but it wasn’t a quintessential love-story that led to their bizarre nuptial. They didn’t seem to have any other prospects going for them, so they settled. "We really decided to get married because one day we were like, nobody likes either one of us, we should probably get married. We had a lot in common but it got crazy,” Arnold said on the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here.
Barr Had Multiple Personality Disorder, And Only Two Liked Arnold
While Barr probably has a big enough personality to make up 30 charismatic individuals, Arnold claims that she had nearly 30 distinct personalities inside of her. He claimed that she suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder. “She had issues she has been very open about, she’s got Multiple Personality Disorder. It is a fact that she had 27 different personalities,” he said. It’s true that Barr has been vocal about her MPD in the past. She said that she’s most comfortable referring to herself as “we.” In an interview with journalist Mike Sager, she explained that she only uses “I” to fit in. “We’ve never been comfortable saying ‘I,’” Barr told Sager, “It’s something we have to do with singletons. You know, to sound normal.” Sager asked her to clarify with “singletons” meant. “Like you. People who don’t have the gift. We consider it a gift.”
Unfortunately for Arnold, supposedly only two of Barr’s personalities liked him.
Barr Cited Physical Abuse In A Restraining Order She Put Out On Arnold
Barr filed for divorce from Arnold in 1994, after four years of marriage. On top of that, she also slapped him with a restraining order. In the petition for the order, she said: “I now realize that I have been a classic battered and abused wife. Throughout the marriage the respondent hit me, struck me, has thrown objects at me, pinched me and verbally abused me.”
It Was A White Trash Wedding
Video: YouTube
Both Arnold and Barr had reputations for being crass and a bit campy. The two reveled in being tabloid fodder, and they played up their lowbrow personas for the press. They were fully aware of what they were doing though, and they knew how to profit off it. Arnold even famously said at their wedding reception: “We’re America’s worst nightmare: white trash with money!”
Arnold's Big Tattoo Of Barr's Face Was The Biggest Mistake Of His Life
On Valentine’s Day 1994, in one final gasping attempt to revive the marriage before it died, Arnold got a fairly large tattoo of Barr’s face on his chest. He later said it was one of the stupidest things he ever did. The day the divorce went through, he immediately started laser treatment to get it removed. He said: “I knew I’d never have sex with anyone until I got that removed.”
A True Event From Their Divorce Went Into Arnold’s Movie ‘True Lies’
Video: YouTube
Arnold was filming perhaps his most well-know movie, True Lies, in the midst of his divorce. In the movie, his character, Harry Tasker’s (Arnold Schwarzenegger) partner, tries to console Tasker, who thinks his wife is cheating on him, by sharing some insight from his own second marriage. But in reality the quip came from Arnold's own troubled love life. Arnold had come home one day to find that Barr had taken all his remote controls and threw his clothes in the pool. Then he found she stole all the ice cube trays out of the freezer. Arnold had been complaining about this on set to James Cameron and said: “The ice cube trays are out of the freezer. What kind of sick b*tch takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer?” Cameron liked the line so much it went into the movie.
They Owned A Diner But It Closed After Their Divorce
Photo: Roseanne / ABCThree years into their marriage, Barr and Arnold purchased a farm outside, Eldon, IA, close to where Arnold grew up. Along with the farm, they purchased a former pizza place and converted it into Roseanne & Tom’s Big Food Diner, the only diner in town that would serve food after six PM. The diner served loose meat sandwiches, just like on Roseanne. The restaurant closed in 1995, once their divorce was finalized.
18 Years After Their Divorce They Roasted Each Other On Comedy Central
Video: YouTube
After 18 years of estrangement, Arnold and Barr tolerated being in the same room together, albeit not under the most cordial of circumstances. Tom Arnold appeared as one of the guest speakers during her 2012 Comedy Central Roast. He mainly made a lot of jokes about everything he had to endure during their four years of marriage. Barr retorted: “Jesus Christ, how may jobs do I have to get for that guy?”
