Sarah Silverman said she let Louis C.K. masturbate in front of her, with consent

Sarah Silverman used to let Louis C.K. masturbate in front of her, she told Howard Stern in an interview on Monday.

While C.K. has been somewhat eviscerated for doing the same thing to other women, as per a New York Times story last year which he later admitted to, Silverman said she let the comic masturbate in her presence consensually when they were in the early part of their careers.

"Listen, I don’t know if I’m going to regret saying this, but I’ve known Louis forever. I’m not making excuses for him — please don’t take this that way," Silverman told Stern, according to a transcript from Vulture.

"But, you know, we are peers, we are equals. When we were kids, and he used to ask if he could masturbate in front of me, sometimes I’d go, ‘Fuck yeah I want to see that!’"

Silverman said her case is different to the other women who accused C.K. of sexual misconduct, as they were peers, or equals. In a statement last year, C.K. said he had taken advantage of the "power I had over these women" who had accused him, and that he "wielded that power irresponsibly."

"It’s not analogous to the other women that are talking about what he did to them, because he could offer me nothing. We were only just friends. So sometimes, yeah, I wanted to see it, it was amazing," Silverman said.

"Sometimes I’d be like, 'Fucking, gross, no,' and we’d get pizza. So I’m not saying what he did was okay, I’m just saying at a certain point, when he became influential — not even famous — but influential in the world of comedy, it changes.

"And he realized that. He realized it later — but certainly before that New York Times — and even in that New York Times article, they talk about how he went on and tried to connect with some of these women to say 'I fucked up and wronged you and want to make this right.'"

It's a comment she would later apologize for, when one of C.K.'s accusers, comedian Rebecca Corry, challenged Silverman on what she said in the interview.

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Silverman told Stern she doesn't think "everyone should embrace Louis again," but believed C.K. could made a return, if he addresses his sexual misconduct on stage.

"I believe he has remorse, I believe he can come back, I just want him to talk about it on stage," 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."