Alyssa Milano is not happy, and this time it isn’t about politics. It’s about Roseanne Barr getting a brand new show. The former “Charmed” star took to Instagram to vent after news broke that Roseanne had landed a fresh project. Meanwhile, Milano’s own pitches keep getting turned down, one after another.
“Ten years, twelve pilots, and no one bites. Evidently hatred is what moves nowadays,” Alyssa vented to her Instagram followers.
That one line said a lot. Twelve pilots in ten years is a lot of pitching, a lot of meetings, and a lot of polite “we’ll be in touch” emails. And instead of looking inward, Alyssa seems to have decided the problem is everyone else.
But maybe things are more straightforward than they appear.
Roseanne is, whether her critics like it or not, genuinely funny. She built one of the most successful sitcoms in television history by making regular working families laugh at themselves. Even after being pushed out of Hollywood, she kept a loyal audience that never really left her. Those fans show up. They watch. They buy tickets. Networks notice that.
Alyssa, on the other hand, has spent much of the last decade being known more for her tweets than for her work. Hashtags, hot takes, and online arguments might get attention, but attention isn’t the same as an audience that loves you.
“Executives don’t greenlight shows because someone is loud online,” said Alex Bruno, a former TV development assistant. “They greenlight shows because people will actually sit down and watch. Roseanne has that. That’s the whole story.”
Calling Roseanne’s success “hatred” also didn’t land well with a lot of people. Many of the comments under Alyssa’s post pointed out that millions of ordinary Americans simply enjoy Roseanne’s humor. Labeling all of them as hateful because they like a comedian is exactly the kind of attitude that made many viewers tune out of Hollywood in the first place.
Some of Alyssa’s own fans tried to cheer her on, telling her to keep pushing and that her moment would come. Others gently suggested she might want to rethink the pitches rather than blame the audience.
Roseanne, for her part, hasn’t responded directly. She doesn’t really need to. A new show speaks louder than any Instagram rant.
There’s a lesson here for anyone in entertainment. People want to laugh. They want to feel like a show is made for them, not aimed at them. Roseanne understands that instinctively, and it’s why she keeps getting chances that others don’t.
Alyssa may well get her break someday. Thirteenth pilot’s the charm, maybe. But until then, she might find it more useful to study what Roseanne is doing right instead of calling her audience names.