Sarah Silverman Says She Was Fired From Film Project Over Blackface Clip
(JTA) — Sarah Silverman said she was fired from a movie role after producers saw a clip of her in blackface, the Jewish comedian said in an interview on The Bill Simmons Podcast.
“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 said, referring to her now canceled Comedy Central sitcom “The Sarah Silverman Program.”
In the episode, Silverman put on blackface in an effort to prove a point about who faces more discrimination, Jews or African-Americans.
In the interview, she said she had changed as a person and that she understood that wearing blackface is “never OK.”
Blackface, which has a long history in American entertainment, is considered deeply racist and offensive to African-Americans.
This is not the first time that Silverman has courted controversy with a racially charged comedy routine. In 2016, she appeared on the TBS show “Conan” dressed as Adolf Hitler.
Silverman recently was subject to racial harassment herself: Last week, she tweeted an undated video of a Florida pastor delivering an anti-Semitic rant in which he called for God to loose his divine wrath upon her.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30