Paul Warner/Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesRoseanne Barr is under fire for what turned out to be some incendiary tweets.
The Emmy winner and increasingly political comedienne has been sued by the parents of George Zimmerman, acquitted last year in the killing of Trayvon Martin, for supposedly tweeting out the family's home address about a month after the February 2012 shooting.
Gladys and Robert Zimmerman are seeking at least $15,000 in damages for alleged invasion of privacy and emotional distress, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Florida's Seminole County.
The couple state in their complaint that their son lived at the address in question from 2001 to 2006 but did not live there when Barr shared their adress and phone number with her 110,000 followers. (The Roseanne star has more than twice as many now.)
The plaintiffs state that they were "forced to flee their home" as a direct result of Barr's tweet, which subsequently prompted the media (among others) to descend in droves upon the house.
On her end, Barr tweeted but then quickly deleted something about the release of addresses and private information, but then tweeted in response to someone who posted a link to an article about the suit, "@direct7000 vast numbers of ppl on twitter who say/RT incendiary things can now b sued, which cld b good-esp. 4 anti semites/racists."
"It's sad that I did apologize & attempt to contact them until hundreds of threats/doxes by their fans," she added.
@direct7000 it's sad that I did apologize & attempt to contact them until hundreds of threats/doxes by their fans.
— Roseanne Barr (@TheRealRoseanne) March 12, 2014Barr tweeted to another who called her actions "inexcusable": "@unaccounted_4 it was a rt of an incorrect address. u will b hearing from my lawyers for libel."
She also retweeted a post directed at her: "@TheRealRoseanne Hey Roseanne I heard Jose Baez is free...#rediculouslawsuit." Baez represented Casey Anthony when she was on trial for murder.
But this isn't the first lawsuit filed against a celebrity over an errant tweet regarding the Zimmerman case, which remains a hot-button issue to this day.
A Florida couple sued Spike Lee twice, once in 2012 and again in November for retweeting what he thought was Zimmerman's address, which turned out to belong to the eventual plaintiffs.
Per that lawsuit, the tweet originated with a California man who contacted a number of celebrities to get the word out, which Lee did, prompting all sorts of responses and causing Elaine and David McClain to fear for their lives.
The first time around, the filmmaker settled with and personally apologized to the McClains. But they sued again, claiming they continued to be the target of threats throughout Zimmerman's trial last summer.
—Additional reporting by Marcus Mulick