Sarah Silverman shared insight into the circumstances around her infant brother Jeffrey’s unexpected death and how her paternal grandfather Max Silverman was involved.

Sarah Silverman is giving a glimpse into her family’s story.

Over 50 years after the unexpected death of her older brother Jeffrey Silverman at 3 months old, the comedian said her father once told her that her late grandfather Max Silverman was responsible for the tragedy.

“The story was that something happened with the crib, and Jeffrey’s little body slid and he got suffocated,” Sarah—who has two sisters, Susan Silverman, 62, Laura Silverman, 58—explained to Rolling Stone in an interview published May 18. “But if you look back, there was never a lawsuit with the crib company or anything.”   

After her dad late Donald Silverman attended her production of Bedwetter in 2022, one year before his death, he shared what really happened to her brother, who was born several years before her.

“My dad says, ‘I always felt that he was crying or something, and my dad shook him,’” the 54-year-old recalled of the conversation. “‘He shook him in a rage and killed him.’ As soon as he said it, it was like, ‘Of course, that’s what happened.’”

The Wreck-It Ralph voice actor—whose mom Beth Ann O’Hara died in 2015—said that her paternal grandmother Rose Silverman “always stood by her husband.”

Sarah added, “I couldn’t ask my mom, because she was dead.”

After the confession, she admitted that it made sense, especially with her dad’s “heartbreaking” childhood.

“His dad beat the s–t out of him every day, just mercilessly,” she told the outlet. “He had a younger brother who wasn’t touched. His father made the kids call him Mr. Silverman.”

Although Sarah—who began dating Rory Albanese in 2020—has come to terms with her family’s history, she revealed that she previously broached the subject of her brother’s death at just age 5 with a crass joke.

“My grandmother picked us up for our Sunday breakfast at a local diner, and she said, ‘Everybody buckle up,’” she wrote in her 2014 memoir The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee, per NPR. “Thinking I was going to kill, I said, ‘Yeah, we don’t want to wind up like Jeffrey,’ and just silence. My sisters turned and looked at me like I was crazy, and my grandmother just burst into tears.”

She admitted that the incident ultimately taught her that sometimes, her comedic choices can have consequences.  

“I think I’ve been called edgy—but in all honesty, there is a safety in what I do because I’m always the idiot,” she wrote. “Unless you’re just listening to buzz words and not taking into account the context of the situation, you see, I’m always the ignoramus.”

She concluded, “No matter what I talk about or what tragic event, off-color, dark scenario is evoked in my material, I’m always the idiot in it.”

Source: www.eonline.com