Sarah Silverman Reveals She Got Dropped From Movie Due to Old Blackface Sketch
Written by SOURCE on August 13, 2019
During a recent interview on Bill Simmons’ podcast, Sarah Silverman said that she was dropped from an upcoming film because of a 2007 episode of her Comedy Central show The Sarah Silverman Program in which she wore blackface.
“I recently was going to do two days on a movie, a sweet part in a cool little movie, then at 11 p.m. the night before they fired me because they saw a picture of me in blackface from that episode,” Silverman revealed to Simmons. “So they hired someone else who’s wonderful but who’s never stuck her neck out.”
She added that she didn’t fight her firing, but also stated that “it was so disheartening, it just made me real, real sad because I’ve kind of devoted my life to making it right.”
The blackface segment had occurred in Season 2 Episode 3 of the aforementioned program during an episode in which Silverman paints her face to see which is harder, being black or Jewish.
Last year, in an interview with GQ, Silverman said she no longer stands by the episode.
“I don’t stand by the blackface sketch,” she said at the time. “I’m horrified by it, and I can’t erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on.”
She also added: “That was such liberal-bubble stuff, where I actually thought it was dealing with racism by using racism. I don’t get joy in that anymore. It makes me feel yucky.”
In addition to revealing the firing, and expressing regret over the ’07 episode, she also made an argument against cancel culture.
“I think it’s really scary and it’s a very odd thing that it’s invaded the left primarily and the right will mimic it,” she said. “It’s so odd. It’s a perversion. It’s really, ‘Look how righteous I am and now I’m going to press refresh all day long to see how many likes I get in my righteousness.”
