Sarah Silverman says Louis C.K. masturbated in front of her with her consent

By Suzy Byrne

Sarah Silverman got candid about her longtime friendship with Louis C.K. in a new interview on The Howard Stern Show on Monday. In it, she admitted that he had masturbated in front of her too. However, she didn’t have the same feelings about it that the multiple women who accused him of sexual misconduct did and likely still do.

While the star of Hulu’s I Love You, America With Sarah Silverman stated during the interview that what her “brother” C.K. did to his accusers “was wrong,” she said, “It’s all very black and white until it comes to your front door and the bad guy is someone you love.”

She went on to say that she doesn’t think he should be lumped in with “serial rapist Bill Cosby” or Harvey Weinstein.

“His pathology is permission-based,” she said. “I’m not saying it’s OK, because once he got famous, even just in the comedy community, that changes everything and it makes it not OK.” However, she noted, he took responsibility for his behaviour, apologised (though even that was controversial), and wants to make it right — versus the men who “deny, deny, deny” accusations against them, she said, citing Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh.

Sarah Silverman and Louis C.K. at the 88th Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball in 2016. (Photo: Getty Images)
Sarah Silverman and Louis C.K. at the 88th Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball in 2016. (Photo: Getty Images)

Silverman — who noted in the interview multiple times that comedians are “freaks,” “freaky,” and “perverted” — seemed to surprise even Stern when she went on to say that C.K. asked her permission to masturbate in front of her. “I’m going to regret saying this, but I’ve known him forever. I’m not making excuses for him. Please don’t take this that way. We are peers. We are equals,” she prefaced. “So when we were kids and he asked if he could masturbate in front of me, sometimes I’d go, ‘F*** yeah. I want to see that.’ Yeah. It was like science!”

Silverman said that she can’t be compared to C.K.’s accusers “because he could offer me nothing,” suggesting that he had no power over her. “We were only just friends. So, sometimes, yeah, I wanted to see it. It was amazing. Sometimes I’d be like, ‘F***ing gross, no,’ and we’d get pizza. I’m not saying what he did was OK. At a certain point, when he became influential in the world of comedy, it changes. He realised it.” But, she said, “he realised it later.”

Stern asked if she had found the situation uncomfortable, and she said that the first penis she ever saw was in a nonconsensual situation — and that was scarring. She was an 18-year-old virgin working at a Mexican restaurant when her boss called her into his office and exposed himself and masturbated in front of her. She didn’t view the experience with C.K., her friend, as a violating one like that. While C.K. had once asked her out, she admitted, they “established early on that we were bros, we were friends.”

Silverman, who says she hasn’t spoken to C.K. in three months, said there was a lot of funny business going on in their orbit as young comics anyway. She told another story of a time when they stripped naked, threw their clothes off a roof, and then took the elevator down — completely nude — to get them.

Silverman said that she and other comedians are constantly asked about C.K., and she felt that she should be candid. As for whether he should have a comeback, “I believe he has remorse,” she said. “I believe he can come back. I just want him to talk about it onstage.” However, she said, “comics don’t like to be told what to do, so he’s just going to have to find his way or not find his way, and people are going to watch him or not watch him.”

In November 2017, five women accused Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct in a piece published by the New York Times. Most of his accusers said that he’d invited them into his hotel room and then masturbated in front of them. C.K. admitted soon after that the claims were true.

Silverman’s sister Laura Silverman later tweeted that C.K. had masturbated in front of her, naked, about 20 times.

Like her sister, she didn’t view it as a criminal act.

They had briefly dated prior to that.

C.K. has slowly been taking steps toward returning to comedy. During a recent show, he said that he’d been to “hell and back” since his sexual misconduct scandal and “lost £26 million.”

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