Comedian ups security after threats
SARAH Silverman has to have metal detectors at her gigs because of threats she has received.
The 46-year-old American comedian – whose A Speck of Dust comedy special is now streaming on Netflix – revealed that she now has extra security measures at her performances after she angered some people with her tweets.
She told The Hollywood Reporter: “The last few legs of this tour, I got some. I’m not even that aware of it because I don’t look at my mentions much or anything; I don’t really understand Facebook. I got, I guess, some threats and calls to my manager’s office and stuff, and that made it so that they said you have to get metal detectors and security.
“I’m not Britney Spears. I have to pay for it myself, so it really cuts into – but I mean I’d rather be alive.
“They had to have metal detectors at all my gigs and it was a little ridiculous. People get very angry. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.”
When asked, “Was that about the tweet you sent out that was interpreted as you calling for a military coup?”, Sarah replied: “Yeah, and many other things, but that was the instigating one.”
In the time between this comedy special and her last, Sarah lost her mother and two close friends, Harris Wittels and Garry Shandling, and she acknowledged that her work was influenced by the losses and also by her own near-death experience when a sore throat turned into “a freak case of epiglottitis”.
Sarah said: “In the time between my last special and this special, actually in the span of under two years, I lost three of the closest people in my life and almost died myself.
“In a lot of ways, even if not on the surface, it really informed what the special was and it was kind of a no-brainer to dedicate the special to the people I lost.
“Preparing for this special had so many starts and stops. I mean, I wasn’t preparing for a special necessarily, I was just doing stand-up and starting over in that way.
“A lot of times those starts and stops are because you’re working on a TV show or doing something that takes you away from stand-up. But these starts and stops were all very emotional and were stops where I would go, ‘I can’t imagine. Am I supposed to go onstage and tell jokes now?’ I couldn’t even picture that.
“And then each time I would always go back to stand-up because I think comics survive life by doing stand-up. That’s how they get through things always. It always led me back to there and I’m sure in lots of indirect ways it informed the material I did.” – Bang Showbiz