Sarah Silverman claims she was fired from a film after a sketch of her in blackface resurfaced.
On The Bill Simmons Podcast, Silverman alleged that she had a “sweet part” in an upcoming film, but that she was let go following producers seeing a photograph of her in blackface from a 2007 sketch on The Sarah Silverman Show.
"I didn’t fight it," Silverman said on the podcast of the firing. "They hired someone else who is wonderful but who has never stuck their neck out. It was so disheartening. It just made me real, real sad, because I really kind of devoted my life to making it right."
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Silverman’s sketch, "Face Wars," involved her “switching lives” with Black actor Alex Desert. In it, she claims it is more difficult to be Jewish in America than it is to be Black. Silverman paints her face and wears a white and red bandana on her head, while Desert wears a fake nose and a shirt that says "I heart money."
Silverman tweeted the photo of herself in blackface along with the caption “I have minstrel cramps” in 2010. In 2015, Silverman appeared on Watch What Happens Live! and said it was her “most regrettable joke” and "racist out of context."
In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Silverman again apologized for the joke and her 2010 tweet.
"I thought I was talking to fans of my show who had seen the episode, but every once in a while I get someone so hurt and disgusted by that photo, and there is nothing I can do except direct message them and explain the context," said Silverman of the sketch.
She told GQ in May of 2018 that the sketch "made [her] famous" at the time, and said she felt it wasn't wrong in the moment because she was "clearly liberal."
"I don't stand 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," Silverman told GQ.
Refinery29 has reached out to Silverman for comment.
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