Sarah Silverman's never been one to mince words; on the contrary, she's famous for being as delightfully filthy as she can possibly be, skewering every stereotype and dancing through every taboo imaginable with a childlike sense of glee and feigned innocence.
In her new Playboy interview, Jimmy Kimmel's ex responds to questions about her irreverent brand of humor by telling a story about how "the onetime lead singer of a very popular band from the 1980s" came up to her after one of her shows and said, "You're my favorite comedian. You have the best n*gger jokes." Silverman didn't outright name ex-Journey frontman Steve Perry, but she added, "I'll just say this: After that, I stopped believin'." This, of course, was an obvious dig at the band's iconic hit "Don't Stop Believin'."
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Perry responded incredulously to Silverman's unmistakable accusation, denying it entirely. Sort of. "I'm really shocked. She was so friendly and so nice," Perry told RS. "I don't understand why she would go there, it's so bizarre. I don't use that word, are you kidding? That's so derogatory."
The guy who penned the theme song to a hundred thousand '80s proms (are you old enough to remember "Faithfully"?) did admit to meeting Silverman on more than one occasion "a long time ago" after being "amazed at her ability to make people actually laugh at every racial slur and every ethnic group she could possibly come up with." However, things didn't exactly go down the way she described it.
Perry goes on to tell RS, "I walked up to her after the show and I said, 'I can't believe that somehow you seem to be getting away with all these slurs and the n-word, I just can't believe how you're doing this,' and I looked at my friend and I said, 'I can't believe how she's getting away with this,' and she looked at me and kind of smiled. It wasn't like I was condemning her or condoning her, it was just that I can't believe how somehow creatively she was making everybody in that club of all colors and all ethnic backgrounds laugh. That's what it was."
It's important to keep a couple things in mind. First, Steve Perry is known in the annals of rock history as being one of the biggest a**holes to ever go platinum. That doesn't qualify him as a racist, but it certainly begs a second look at whatever claims of comment are aimed his way. Secondly, regarding Silverman, let's not forget that this is the same woman who recently put out an album of songs which titles include "Mouth Veins Tushy Vagina," "You're Gonna Wish The Holocaust Never Happened," "AIDS Ballad" and "A Vagina Like Cat Steven's Face," to name just a few. Political correctness isn't exactly her selling point.
Perry, who's undoubtedly thrilled to be in the news regardless of the story, put a silver lining on the incident by praising the mean-spirited comic: "You've gotta see her show because she uses every ethnic slur known to man that historically has been very unforgivable. I'm Portuguese, that's the only ethnic background she left out, but maybe after this article she'll come after me now."
Bet your ass she will.
