Tig Notaro is breaking her silence about Louis C.K.’s recent Saturday Night Live appearance.
The Louie star raised eyebrows when he appeared in a sketch that many believed strongly resembled Notaro’s short film Clown Service.
“It has been impossible for me to ignore the cacophony of voices reaching out personally and publicly about the potential plagiarizing of my film Clown Service (a film that I screened at Largo in Los Angeles for over a year and it premiered at Vulture’s Comedy Festival in NYC as well as numerous film festivals around the country and I am currently screening on my national tour). While I don’t know how all this actually happened, I did find it extremely disappointing,” Notaro said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
“Here is what I can tell you,” she continued. “First off, I have recently learned that a writer/director who was fully aware of Clown Service when I was making it, actually worked on Louis C.K.’s clown sketch that is in question.”
Notaro wrote, directed and stars in the short, which premiered in 2015. One day after the sketch in question premiered on SNL, and questions about the similarity between the late-night series‘ “Birthday Clown” and “Clown Service” heated up, Notaro posted the short on her Facebook page. The comedian noted she is currently on a nationwide tour where she is screening the short.
Although Notaro said in her statement that she and C.K. have not talked in more than a year, the latter serves as an executive producer on her Amazon comedy One Mississippi, which is returning for a second season. The two have collaborated several times before. Back in 2015, C.K. began selling Notaro’s famed 2015 Largo stand-up set on his website. At the time, he called the set, in which she opened up about her battle with breast cancer, “masterful.” Portions of the proceeds from the set went to charities associated with fighting breast cancer.
Watch Notaro’s short here:
Watch the Saturday Night Live sketch, called “Birthday Clown,” here:
