Donald Trump calls Roseanne to congratulate her on 'huge' ratings

Reviving a beloved television series is always a risky game, but it paid off for Roseanne Barr and her all-American sitcom Roseanne, which bounced back to the small screen to the delight of a whopping 18.1 million viewers on Tuesday. 

And one of them was President Trump, who was so impressed by what he described as "huge" ratings that he took time out of running the country to call and congratulate Barr personally, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed.

Trump, who came to public recognition after appearing on the US version of The Apprentice, racked up 22 acting credits before embarking on his political career and is obsessed with the viewing numbers television shows rack up. 

On-screen and off, Barr is a vocal supporter of Trump. Roseanne first aired in 1988 and became a hit thanks to its frank and funny representation of working class family life in America. Barr said she decided to turn her character, Roseanne Conner, into a Trump voter to maintain an "accurate portrayal" of working-class Americans. Conner's sister Jackie Harris, however, supported Hillary. 

“I just wanted to have that dialogue about families torn apart by the election and their political differences of opinion and how we handle it,” she told the New York Times this week. “I thought that this was an important thing to say at this time.”

The high viewer numbers make Roseanne the highest-rated sitcom of the last three years, and far more watched than its nearest rival, Will & Grace, which was rebooted for NBC in September: just over 10 million viewers tuned in for the return of the best friends.