Sarah Silverman revealed that she was recently fired from a movie over an old photo of her in blackface.
She said the photo, which was snapped on the set of “The Sarah Silverman Show” in 2007, recently resurfaced and caught the eye of the film’s producers.
“I recently was going to do a movie, a sweet part,” she said on “The Bill Simmons Podcast.” “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 continued. “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.”
Silverman wouldn’t name the movie.
In the sketch, Silverman’s character wore dark face paint to see whether it is more difficult to be black or Jewish.
“I look like the beautiful Queen Latifah,” she said in the sketch before telling the congregation at an African-American church, “I’m black today.”
On the podcast, the comedian, 48, also blasted “cancel culture” and said it has left her feeling scared because no one is given a second chance.
“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,” adding that she calls it “righteousness porn.”
“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 long spoken out against the sketch, which she said at first was praised and helped her career. She maintains she regrets it.
“It was like, I’m playing a character, and I know this is wrong, so I can say it. I’m clearly liberal. That was such liberal-bubble stuff, where I actually thought it was dealing with racism by using racism,” she previously told GQ.
“I don’t get joy in that anymore. It makes me feel yucky. All I can say is that I’m not that person anymore.”