Rosanne Barr’s Daughter Claims She Has PTSD From Being ‘Locked Up’ In Facilities For Troubled Teens

Jenny Pentland, the daughter of comedian Roseanne Barr, is speaking out this week to claim that she has PTSD from being “locked up” in facilities for troubled teens when she was younger.

‘I Was Locked Up’

“I was locked up,” Jenny Pentland told People Magazine. She claims that between the ages of 13 and 18, she was sent to various reform schools, psychiatric institutions, and a wilderness boot camp because she was “acting out” due to her mother’s sudden fame on the sitcom “Roseanne.”

Pentland recounts being sent to these facilities by her parents, Roseanne Barr and Bill Pentland, in her memoir “This Will Be Funny Later.”

“I was getting bad grades, and I was mouthy, cutting my arms and smoking cigarettes,” she said. “Just depressed.”

Pentland added that her parents were afraid of her and her older sister Jessica “spiraling out of control.” By the time that Pentland was placed in these facilities, Jessica had already been sent to a psychiatric hospital after stealing Barr’s car and taking it for a joy ride. 

She claims that she suffered physical and emotional abuse at some of the places she was put in, though she also says that “the worst abuse I feel I suffered was having my free will removed — the lack of freedom.” 

Related: ‘Roseanne’ Producer Reveals She Was Reported To HR For Saying ‘Merry Christmas’

Pentland Finds Happiness – Doesn’t Blame Her Parents

These days, Pentland is a 45-year-old happily married mother of five sons – Eitan, 21, Cosmo, 16, Otis, 14, Buster, 12, and Ezra, 18 months. She decided to speak out now in the hopes of raising awareness about problematic programs that are aimed at troubled teenagers. 

“These places are still out there and I want it to stop,” she said. “I don’t think about what I’ve lost anymore. I think about what other people are losing right now or what they’re going to lose if it doesn’t change.” 

Pentland also holds no hard feelings against either of her parents for her experiences as a teenager. 

“Even in the midst of all the s***, being funny was the most important skill you could develop in my family,” she said in her book, according to The Daily Beast. “You could defuse any situation and tell the most brutal truths without consequence if you could just make everyone laugh. It was a risk, though. If you didn’t absolutely nail the joke, you were f***ed.”

Related: Comedian Whitney Cummings Defies Hollywood To Defend Roseanne Barr

Pentland Talks Barr Being ‘Cancelled’

Jenny Pentland went on to address Barr being “cancelled” in 2018 over a tweet about Barack Obama’s former advisor Valerie Jarrett that many deemed to be racist. Though this resulted in ABC cancelling the reboot of “Roseanne,” Pentland does not think this bothered her mother.

“Her internet-trolling, name-calling, conspiracy-theory-based tweets were upsetting to people, and even though her public relations staff and the network suggested she stay off Twitter, she kept at it,” Pentland wrote. “She doesn’t like being told what to do, in case we haven’t already established that.”

“I could tell she wasn’t truly invested in the new ‘Roseanne’ show,” she added. “Most of her time was spent studying Judaism or watching true-crime programs, and this new attempt at staying relevant in an industry she didn’t much care for seemed more of a burden than a joy. She had sounded exhausted and underwhelmed any time we had talked on the phone recently.”

Jenny Pentland’s memoir is set to be released on January 18.