*Sarah Silverman has revealed that she was recently fired from an upcoming movie because of an old character she played wearing blackface.
During an interview on Bill Simmons’ podcast, Silverman explained how she was left disheartened after being dropped from the 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 said. “So they hired someone else who’s wonderful but who’s never stuck her neck out.”
Adding, “it was so disheartening, it just made me real, real sad because I’ve kind of devoted my life to making it right.”
OTHER NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: ’47 Meters Down: Uncaged’ Cast Talks Pros and Cons of Filming Underwater (EUR Exclusive/WATCH)
Comedy Gold: Sarah Silverman Fired From New Movie Over Old Blackface Pic https://t.co/lkrN6QEheO pic.twitter.com/7DY8lR2jFP
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) August 13, 2019
The blackface segment appeared in Season 2 Episode 3 of her sketch comedy series, in which she paints her face to see if its harder being black or Jewish.
Silverman previously opened up about regretting the episode in a 2015 interview on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” in which she said it “looks totally racist out of context.”
Last year, in an interview with GQ, she said she no longer stands by the blackface sketch. “I’m horrified by it, and I can’t erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on,” she admitted.
Adding, “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.”
Silverman told Simmons, “It’s OK to go, ‘wow, look at this back then: that was so (expletive) up looking at it in light of today, of what we know,'” she said. “But to hold that person accountable if they’ve changed with the times — I’m not saying don’t hold me accountable — but I held myself accountable. I can’t erase that I did that, I can only be changed forever and do what I can to make it right for the rest of my life.”
You can watch her blackface segment via the clip above (starting around 4:00).
