Sarah Silverman issues apology to Paris Hilton for 'cruel' jail jokes

Comedian Sarah Silverman issued an apology to socialite Paris Hilton for throwing her under the bus by joking about her forthcoming prison term during the MTV Movie Awards in 2007.

Paris had attended the awards show just hours prior to being jailed for violating probation regarding a drinking and driving conviction.

Sarah, who had hosted the show, had said "Paris Hilton is going to jail," which led to some cheers from the audience.

Needless to say that when the camera panned to Paris, she looked extremely uncomfortable.

Taking to Instagram, Sarah shared a lengthy apology acknowledging her mistake.

"I said some very hardcore jokes about her... Paris, I am really sorry," Silverman said.

Her apology comes after Paris, earlier this week, admitted in her podcast that the "cruel" jokes saw her fighting back tears and "wanting to die".

She said: "I was obviously very nervous... I knew I was about to check myself into jail in a couple of hours... just getting all dressed up, going there, trying to be brave. And then to sit in the audience with her publicly humiliating me, being so mean, so cruel.

"I was sitting there wanting to die... I was trying to hold back my tears so hard. I had tears welling in my eyes, I wanted to run out of the entire room, but I just was trying to be strong and sit there, and the whole audience is laughing and she would not stop. It was so painful."

Following the apology, Paris said she was "shocked... and pleasantly surprised" while also appreciating the "genuine and sweet" gesture.

"[Silverman] was so genuine and so sweet and it really moved me. I felt emotional hearing it and I could tell she really did mean what she said when she was apologising," she said.

"Thank you, I really, really appreciate you doing that."

Regarding her prison term, the socialite served three days of her sentence and was released early due to an undisclosed medical problem.

Following her release, she was kept under house arrest for 20 days and wore an electronic tag for 40 days.