Sarah Silverman has addressed the news that her longtime friend Louis C.K. masturbated in front of several unwilling women.
Speaking in an episode of her Hulu show I Love You America, Silverman – who has remained quiet about the incidents even after C.K. confirmed they happened last week – said she had to address ‘the elephant masturbating in the room’.
The rest of the monologue was largely joke-free, and saw her choking up as she was forced to ask herself: ‘Can you love someone who does bad things?’
Speaking out: On Thursday comedian Sarah Silverman spoke out about her friend, Louis C.K, harassing several female comedians by masturbating in front of them
Bad things: C.K. (pictured) admitted to exposing himself to the women. Silverman said she ‘loves’ the comedian, but that she was ‘angry’ for ‘wielding his power’ over them
Silverman began by saying that the calling out of sexual assault – ‘which happens in bakeries too, it’s just not getting written up in the New York Times’ – was a good thing.
‘It’s like cutting out tumors,’ she said, ‘it’s messy and it’s complicated and it is going to hurt. But it’s necessary and we’ll all be healthier for it.
‘And it sucks, and some of our heroes will be taken down down, and we will discover bad things about people we like, or in some cases, people we love.’
She swallowed hard before continuing: ‘Let’s just say it, I’m talking about Louie.’
Silverman, who has been friends with the comic for more than 25 years and has appeared on his HBO show as herself, said she had been asked to comment on the incidents.
‘I really, really, really don’t want to. I wish I could sit this one out,’ she said.
‘But then I remembered something I said on this very show: That if it’s mentionable, it’s manageable.’
Silverman admitted that C.K. ‘wielded his power’ over female comedians in ‘f**ked up ways… sometimes to the point that they left comedy’.
‘I could couch this with heartwarming stories of our friendship and what a great dad he is, but that’s totally irrelevant, isn’t it?’ she asked, rhetorically.
‘Yes, it is. It’s a real mindf**k because I… I love Louie.’
Best friends: Silverman and C.K. have been friends for more than 25 years. She said she wanted to ‘sit this one out’ but felt that she couldn’t not comment on the situation
Love: ‘I love Louie,’ she said, ‘but Louie did these things… can you love someone who did bad things?’ She added that ‘the only people that matter right now are the victims’
‘But Louie did these things. Both of those statements are true. So, I just keep asking myself, can you love someone who did bad things? Can you still love them?,’ she continued.
‘I can mull that over later, certainly, because the only people that matter right now are the victims. They are victims, and they’re victims because of something he did.’
She said she was ‘still processing all this s**t’, but that right now she hoped ‘it’s okay that I am at once very angry for the women he wronged and the culture that enabled it, and also sad because he’s my friend.’
She concluded by saying that ‘this moment in time is essential. It’s vital that people are held accountable for their actions, no matter who they are.
‘We need to be better. We will be better. I can’t f**king wait for it to be better.’
Silverman’s remarks come after her own sister, Laura Silverman, said on Twitter that C.K. had masturbated in front of her as well.
She said C.K. did it ‘on a cross country trip before he was famous. About 20 times. Not criminal. But compulsive, rude & gross.’
Sarah Silverman did not address this tweet, made last week, in her show.
C.K. admitted to masturbating in front of five comedians – Dana Min Goodman, Abby Schachner, Julia Wolov, Rebecca Corry and a fifth, unnamed woman – over several years.
Sister: Silverman is seen here with her sister Laura Silverman. Although she wasn’t in the initial group of women revealed to have been exposed to C.K. she later said she had
Gross: She said C.K. masturbated himself in front of her ‘about 20 times’ in a way that was ‘not criminal. But compulsive, rude & gross.’ Sarah Silverman didn’t comment on this in the show
Jon Stewart made similar remarks to Silverman on NBC’s Today show on Tuesday, saying ‘You give your friends the benefit of the doubt.’
‘You find yourself at a moment of, did I miss something?’ Stewart continued.
‘Could I have done more? In this situation, we all could have. You feel anger on what he did to people.’
And a third friend of the disgraced stand-up, Marc Maron, made similar remarks on his WTF podcast Monday.
‘Louis copped to it, and copped to it late, but he did it,’ he said. ‘And he’s my friend, and it’s a difficult position to be in because I certainly can’t condone anything he did.
‘There was no way to justify it, no way to defend it, no way to apologize for him about it, no way to let him off the hook.’