Sarah Silverman has opened up on a dark family secret, revealing for the first time what her father told her about the death of her brother when he was 3 months old.
In a new interview for Rolling Stone, the 54-year-old comedian said that for years she and her sisters thought baby Jeffrey died as the result of a crib accident. But in 2022, her father finally told her that he believed his own dad killed him after shaking him in a violent rage.
The tragic incident occurred before she was born, when Jeffrey was being babysat while Silverman’s parents were on vacation.
“The story was that something happened with the crib, and Jeffrey’s little body slid and he got suffocated. But if you look back, there was never a lawsuit with the crib company or anything,” she told Rolling Stone.
Silverman said her father delivered the shocking revelation after watching her perform in the Off-Broadway musical adaptation of her memoir, “The Bedwetter,” which included a joke about the infant’s death.
“My dad says, ‘I always felt that he was crying or something, and my dad shook him,’” she recalled. “‘He shook him in a rage and killed him.’”
“As soon as he said it, it was like, ‘Of course, that’s what happened,’” she continued. “His mother always stood by her husband. She watched him beat the s-t- out of her son. I couldn’t ask my mom, because she was dead.”
Silverman’s mother, Beth, died in 2015, while her father — who she called her “best pal” — died in 2023.
