You Won’t Believe What These ’90s Sitcom Moms Look Like Now!

TV moms from the ’90s will always hold a spe­cial place in our hearts. They’ve giv­en good advice, guid­ed us through dif­fi­cult times, and even pro­vid­ed a few good laughs. From Roseanne Barr and Phyli­cia Rashad to Brett But­ler and Patri­cia Heaton, what hap­pened to these famous TV matri­archs?

1. Debbie Reynolds – Will & Grace

The incom­pa­ra­ble Deb­bie Reynolds played Grace’s moth­er, Bob­bi Adler, on the orig­i­nal Will & Grace (1998–2006). Reynolds brought her quick wit, charm and singing voice to the long-run­ning show, and though she only appeared in 12 episodes, she became a fan favorite.

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Fol­low­ing the sit­com, Reynolds con­tin­ued to work. One of her last big projects was her role as Frances Lib­er­ace in 2013’s Behind the Can­de­labra. Reynolds died in Decem­ber 2016, days after her daugh­ter, actress Car­rie Fish­er, sud­den­ly passed away. Accord­ing to E! News, Reynolds died from a stroke at age 84.

Reynolds’ TV daugh­ter, Debra Mess­ing, paid trib­ute to her co-star: “For 8 years she was my mom. She was pure ener­gy & light when she came on stage. She was lov­ing, and bawdy, and playful—a con­sum­mate pro—old school and yet had the work eth­ic and invest­ment in her craft of a new fiery up and com­er. She was always run­ning off to Vegas or some­where else ‘on the road’ to be a hoofer, to sing and dance and make peo­ple laugh. She per­formed 340 days out of the year. An inspi­ra­tion on every level…a war­rior woman who nev­er stopped work­ing.”

2. Roseanne Barr – Roseanne

Roseanne Barr was, with­out a doubt, television’s most sassy mom, play­ing the title char­ac­ter of Roseanne (1988–97), but when she left the small screen, Barr’s pro­fes­sion­al career took a back­seat to per­son­al chal­lenges.

In an inter­view with the Dai­ly Beast, Barr explained that she suf­fers from an eye con­di­tion that will even­tu­al­ly leave her blind and turns to mar­i­jua­na for relief. “I have mac­u­lar degen­er­a­tion and glau­co­ma, so it’s good for me for that because I have pres­sure in my eyes. It’s a good med­i­cine for a lot of things,” she said. “You do what you have to do. I just try and enjoy vision as much as possible—y’know, liv­ing it up.”

Barr hasn’t let her diag­no­sis hold her back from advo­cat­ing for change in Amer­i­ca. She ran for pres­i­dent in 2012 and fin­ished sixth, accord­ing to Slate. She cam­paigned as the nom­i­nee of the Peace and Free­dom Par­ty, report­ed­ly earn­ing more than 48,000 votes

At the time of this writ­ing, Barr is prepar­ing for a big return to tele­vi­sion, repris­ing her star­ring role in a Roseanne reboot.

3. Janet Hubert – The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

For many fans of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990–96), there is only one Aunt Vivian Banks, despite actress Janet Hubert being replaced in the series in 1993. Even after she stopped play­ing the matri­arch role on the sit­com, Hubert kept her name square­ly con­nect­ed to the show, but not always for pos­i­tive rea­sons.

Hubert report­ed­ly despised co-star Will Smith for alleged­ly not help­ing the rest of the cast dur­ing salary nego­ti­a­tions. She addressed Smith in a viral video (via Us Week­ly): “I seem to remem­ber at option time, com­ing to you and say­ing… ‘With you, maybe we can get a lit­tle raise.’ [We thought] your influ­ence would help us great­ly like they did on ‘Friends.’” Hubert claims Smith respond­ed to her plea with, “My deal is my deal, and y’alls deal is y’alls deal.” She has seem­ing­ly har­bored a grudge against him ever since.

Hubert appeared on The Real in 2016 to deflect alle­ga­tions that she was dif­fi­cult to work with. “Janet Hubert was nev­er dif­fi­cult on that set,” she said, speak­ing in the third per­son. “Janet Hubert was so pro­fes­sion­al, it wasn’t even fun­ny. I think Will sim­ply need­ed to win, and I think some­times when you get caught up in a lie and those things nev­er hap­pened. She nev­er left the set. I nev­er left the set. We got along great.” Hubert claimed the con­tro­ver­sy had every­thing to do with Smith’s age at the time. “I think he was young and he was inex­pe­ri­enced,” she said.

4. Patricia Heaton – Everybody Loves Raymond

Patri­cia Heaton played Ray Romano’s lov­ing wife, Debra, for nine sea­sons on Every­body Loves Ray­mond (1996–2005). Her character–who deserves a medal for patience–garnered plen­ty of laughs as she bat­tled moth­er-in-law Marie Barone (Doris Roberts) and wran­gled her three kids.

When the show end­ed, Heaton remained a con­stant fig­ure on tele­vi­sion, famous­ly tran­si­tion­ing to anoth­er mom job–Frankie Heck on The Middle–for nine sea­sons. The series will end in 2018, and Heaton talked about her vision for the finale with Enter­tain­ment Week­ly. “I can tell you that one of my favorite series finales ever was Six Feet Under where you flash for­ward and see them at each of their funer­als,” she said. “I don’t see us tak­ing it that far, but I think a lot of peo­ple want to know what hap­pens. Some­thing like that. I per­son­al­ly would enjoy that. I don’t know if that’s what the writ­ers have in mind, but I think a lot of peo­ple would like to know where everything’s head­ed.”

5. Phylicia Rashad – The Cosby Show

Poise, strength, and patience are three char­ac­ter­is­tics that come to mind one think of TV mom Clair Huxtable, played by Phyli­cia Rashad, The Cos­by Show (1984–92)

When the series end­ed, Rashad’s career took off. She land­ed key roles in renowned films such as For Col­ored Girls and Steel Mag­no­lias and has been a pow­er­ful fix­ture on the FOX show Empire. In addi­tion, Rashad has graced the stage in a num­ber of pro­duc­tions on and off Broad­way. In 2004, she won the best actress Tony Award for her star­ring turn in A Raisin in the Sun, becom­ing the first black woman to win a dra­mat­ic lead­ing role.

In 2017, crit­ics called her a “pow­er­house” in the pro­duc­tion Head of Pass­es. “I don’t feel exhaust­ed after a per­for­mance. I don’t feel deplet­ed. I don’t feel wast­ed,” she told The New York Times. “I feel a lit­tle buoy­ant, to tell you the truth.”