AMERICAN STAND-up comedian and actor, Sarah Silverman, has recently admitted she lost out on a big movie role after a comedy sketch of her wearing blackface came to light.
In a 2007 episode of The Sarah Silverman Show, the Wreck-it Ralph actor wore blackface and said: “I look like the beautiful Queen Latifah” before entering a baptist church and proclaiming “I’m black today.”
Speaking on The Bill Simmons Podcast, the 48-year-old confessed: “I recently was going to do a movie, a sweet part, then at 11 p.m. the night before they fired me because they saw a picture of me in blackface from that episode. I didn’t fight it.”
She admitted the sketch was inappropriate but expressed her sadness, insisting she is not not ‘that person’ anymore.
The actor went on to criticise cancel culture - which is described as a form of boycott on someone who has shared a questionable opinion, or said something problematic - saying the current climate made her uncomfortable.
“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,” said Silverman.
“It’s like, if you’re not on board, if you say the wrong thing, if you had a tweet once, everyone is, like, throwing the first stone,” she continued. “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.’”
Silverman has previously expressed her mixed opinion on the sketch.
In an interview with GQ in 2018, where Silverman was praised for the episode described the blackface skill as “liberal-bubble stuff”. Arguing she was simply “playing a character”.
In 2015 she called it her most “regrettable joke”.