Roseanne Barr’s daughter, Jennifer Pentland, was a troubled child who was put into institutions for troubled teens.
Barr and her child had a strained relationship
Pentland later learned how it is to be a mother when she became a mom of five, and she reconciled with Barr.
Roseanne Barr’s third child, daughter Jennifer Pentland, opened up for the first time about her traumatic childhood in January 2022. She revealed she spent five years in and out of different facilities for troubled teenagers in the ’80s and ’90s.
Pentland disclosed they confined her in psychiatric institutions, reform schools, and a wilderness boot camp because of her defiance, brought about by the pressures she felt from her mother’s newfound fame starring in the hit TV show, “Roseanne.”
Jennifer revealed in her memoir, “This Will Be Funny Later,” that her mom and dad, Bill Pentland, placed her in institutions after behavioral and education experts recommended it. She added:
“I was getting bad grades, and I was mouthy, [hurting myself] and smoking cigarettes. Just depressed.”
She also disclosed that she and her older sister, Jessica Pentland, had both been sent to a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles after stealing their mother’s vehicle for a joyride. “I think there was a fear of us spiraling out of control,” Jennifer explained.
The Colorado native and her famous mother initially did not get along. Part of the reason was that the ABC sitcom “Roseanne” was based on their family’s real-life dynamics.
In the series, Jennifer and Jessica were portrayed by the characters Becky and Darlene, and their younger brother, Jake Pentland, was portrayed by D.J. Their mother played a strong-willed and supportive parent in a solid marriage. However, their on-screen life differed entirely from the family’s off-screen life.
Barr divorced the father of her three kids, Bill, in 1990—they got married in 1974. The former couple’s union ended after Barr found fame in Hollywood.
The series “Roseanne” started airing in 1988 and ended in 1997. Jennifer admitted she could not bear to watch it without being furious:
“I resented Parallel Jenny’s simple life. I couldn’t watch the show without feeling angry, and then I couldn’t watch it because TV was not allowed in reform school.”
Meanwhile, back home, her mother struggled to balance her work and personal life. At the same time, her dad also had a tough time being a stay-at-home parent. The writer previously worked at the post office while his wife was a cocktail waitress at Bennigan’s, where she would crack jokes with customers.
Barr would later try out for the Colorado comedy club open mics. Well-established comedians, including Denni Miller and Louie Anderson, saw her perform and encouraged her to become a comedian full-time.
The Salt Lake City native heeded the advice and took a plunge which ultimately led to her appearance on “The Tonight Show,” an HBO special, and her most popular work to date, her very own television show, “Roseanne.”
But with the newfound fame, things began to crumble back home. In addition to her daughter despising the TV series, Barr made things more difficult.
The circumstances worsened when the family matriarch started having an affair with “Roseanne” writer Tom Arnold, who later became her second husband.
Having witnessed this, Jennifer penned that her family was gradually breaking up. That put a strain on her mental health, making the situation even more challenging to deal with:
“Our family was falling apart, and the stress of falling apart was making us fall apart even faster.”
The family remained under the microscope as the tabloids and paparazzi hounded them by looking into their past. A private investigator soon discovered some information on Barr. It turned out that she had given up a daughter for adoption when she was only seventeen.
The PI decided to make money from the info and sold it to the National Enquirer at a time when Barr was meeting her first child, daughter Brandi Brown, for the first time. In her book, Jennifer recalled:
“The first time I ever saw my sister Brandi’s face was in the prom picture her high school boyfriend shared on the front page of the National Enquirer while I was standing in line at the grocery store after school.”
Mom of 5 Living in the Wilderness
After all that Barr’s youngest daughter had gone through as a teenager, she became a mom of five later in life – and learned first-hand how it feels to be a parent.
Jennifer is now happily married to her husband, Jeff and they share five sons: Buster, Cosmo, Eitan, Ezra, and Otis. Jennifer divulged she and her parents – especially her mom, fixed their relationship and are now on good terms.
For the mother-and-daughter duo, being in constant contact goes a long way no matter how awkward they still feel toward each other, said Jennifer:
“We communicate at all costs. Even if it’s uncomfortable, annoying, or the timing is bad, that’s the priority.”
Although their relationship has been salvaged, Jennifer still carries a heavy heart because of what she endured as a child, getting shipped off to facilities between the ages of 13 to 18.
The mother of five openly discussed her opposition to the institutions her parents placed her under with the intent to raise awareness about programs designed for troubled teenagers.
Jennifer explained that parents have a tendency to always rely on experts’ help when they discover they have problematic teens in their households, saying: “If you say to a parent, ‘Kids are suffering, and it’s because of your lack of parenting,’ they’re going to say, ‘Okay, what do I do? How do I fix it?’ They’re going to trust experts.”
Having witnessed and experienced emotional and physical abuse in these facilities and suffering PTSD after, Jennifer is advocating against this practice. “The worst abuse I feel I suffered was having my free will removed – the lack of freedom,” she admitted, adding:
“These places are still out there, and I want it to stop. 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.”
Jennifer revealed she and her family eventually worked through their challenging experiences together, acknowledging her role as a “rebellious” child.
These days, Jennifer said her mother jokes about their past, telling her she couldn’t wait to witness Jennifer’s children doing the same thing Jennifer did to her. “She likes to see me getting mine. It’s hilarious,” said Jennifer.
Jennifer now leads a quiet life after moving from Hawaii to a trailer park in the wilderness. The doting mom humbly lives there with her brood, though she admits to missing her former home. On January 3, 2023, she penned on Facebook:
“I miss Hawaii a lot. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since I left. I think about my life there constantly. Being somewhere beautiful helps, though.”
Reconciling with Barr
Despite all her family woes, Jennifer mended her relationship with her mother. She revealed people would often ask her how she managed to forgive her mother after what she went through, and she would find offense in that. She didn’t like people thinking Barr was solely the one in the wrong.
The author explained she was raised by her parents and stepdad, Arnold, while her mom and dad were going through a high-profile divorce. Simultaneously, her mother was doing her best to make “Roseanne” the show that it turned out to be.
So while people came up to her to try and tarnish the award-winning actress’s name because of her harrowing childhood experience, Jennifer saw her mother as someone who never backed down and fought hard against all odds—she did all of that and still came home to them to care for her and her siblings.
If there is one thing Jennifer hoped turned out differently though, it is the decision to send her and her siblings to institutions. If only experts hadn’t whispered in her parents’ ears and repeatedly told them their children needed intervention, saying:
“They’re out of control – they need help.”
It is Jennifer’s belief the said professionals only wanted to profit off their problems and could care less about them. “I think a lot of those people didn’t have our best interests in mind – they had their own interests in mind. There was this real element of the show must go on,” she expressed.
Jennifer added that people from the programs tend to manipulate parents into sending their kids there, which only widens the gap between parents and their children.
Jennifer disclosed that professionals would often advise parents against telling their brood they would be taken away. They are also told not to contact them so that they can adjust to their new “reality,” as it would make the process even more overwhelming.
In her case, when she was fifteen, she was ambushed by a group of men who barged into her Los Angeles home and put her in handcuffs. They then drove her to the airport and flew her to Utah.
The first time Jennifer got sent to an institution, she was driven by her mother at age 13 and left there for eight months. She revealed the “She-Devil” star did not say a word about where she was taking her.
While there, Jennifer was forced to go to a wilderness camp where, against her will, they made her live in the woods for two months. She barely ate any full meals and survived on raisins, half-cooked beans, raw cornmeal, and peanuts.
Young Jennifer was shut out from the outside world without contact with her loved ones. She explained what occurred once she was ultimately given the chance to talk to her parents.
According to Jennifer, once the child is eventually allowed to contact the parents, “the minders” would listen in on their conversations as the kid begs her mom and dad to come home. “Afterward, they’d tell your parents, ‘That was great: You held strong, but you can see how manipulative your kid is.’ It’s grooming for the parents,” Jennifer explained.
When asked how the experience is for the child involved, Jennifer explained that the kid usually feels all alone. But she caught on early on that the institutions were making money off of her, leaving her gob-smacked.
Nonetheless, Jennifer noted she understood why her parents did what they did and how she reached that point in her life. She also said once a child gets placed, they would be put from one facility to the next.
Jennifer believed being eighteen would make everything go away. Still, it did come with some significant changes, as she could no longer be put away against her will. Afterward, she “kept” herself occupied until she fell “pregnant.”
Jennifer was released from her last institution shortly before she became of legal age. She has since maintained a relationship with her mom and even worked alongside her at some point.
As a child of a Hollywood star, Jennifer spent time writing for Barr’s “Roseanne” series before it got canned in 2018 and later rebooted without her in it.
Jennifer has no ill feelings against her beloved parent despite what she went through as a teen, including how she and her siblings would get “trampled” by paparazzi just to get to their mother.
When asked whether she hoped her mother’s success had been handled differently and if she expected a different outcome from the Emmy Award winner’s triumph, Jennifer said:
“It’s hard to be mad, and it’s hard to think about what might have happened differently.”
