Gilbert Gottfried’s widow, Dara Kravitz, paid tribute to the iconic standup comic with a hilarious eulogy that would have made her husband proud.
While she tearfully recalled her late spouse, the 52-year-old film producer recalled his cheeky sense of humor and sometimes crude jokes just days after his death at the age of 67.
“I loved his heart and soul, his jokes were dirty but his heart was so pure,” she tearfully recalled during Thursday’s memorial service at the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York City.
In memory: Gilbert Gottfried’s widow, Dara Kravitz, paid tribute to the legendary standup comic with a hilarious eulogy that would have made her husband proud; Pictured 2017
She continued, “Our relationship has been so special that anything I say is not enough.”
Kravitz further recalled meeting her spouse at a Grammys party at the Tavern on the Green in 1997 when she was 27 and he was 42.
“I went there because I was in the music business and he was there for the free food,” she quipped, nodding to Gottfried’s reputation for cheap. “Some food fell off my plate and Gilbert picked it up and put it on his plate.”
Farewell: Gottfried was buried in the Riverside Memorial Chapel (pictured).
Practical brothers: Gottfried’s longtime pal Jeff Ross (pictured) also offered the grieving Gottfried some comedic relief by also poking fun at the actor’s frugal habits
The mother-of-two continued, “I thought it was a little weird, but I’ve always been a little attracted to weird people. He looked incredibly cute and a bit lost and I felt sorry for him so I was nice to him and then he asked for my phone number and the rest is history.
Kravitz got the crowd laughing as they remembered him ordering a single rice pudding to share at the Moonstruck Diner.
“I thought it was a bit strange,” she admitted. “He couldn’t order two rice puddings?”
Sad farewell: Gottfried died at the age of 67, his family said on Twitter on Tuesday
“I don’t know how to explain the uniqueness of our relationship,” she said. “I was young, outgoing and sociable. Gilbert was shy and introverted. We were opposites, but like two pieces of a puzzle, we fit together perfectly. (For) the next 10 damn years that we were together. He came by every night and watched TV because I actually paid for cable.”
After ten years of dating, she told loved ones in 2007 that he had finally convinced Gottfried to fix his anxiety or marriage and fatherhood.
“Eventually he took the plunge and trusted me,” Kravitz said of finally tying the knot and welcoming their two children, Lily, 14, and Max, 12.
But before he could move into her apartment, she said to him, ‘Please try to get rid of some of your hotel soaps.’
Longtime character actor and comedian Gilbert Gottfried has died aged 67 (pictured in 1990)
“They filled an entire second bedroom in his apartment. He asked his sisters if they needed soap, they said, “Large bars only,” she recalled.
“So Gilbert, who is Gilbert, stayed up all damn night opening these little packages, running the soaps under water and smashing them into big bars,” Kravitz added.
Ultimately, she said “he gave his sisters a garbage bag filled with custom made crushed soaps” that she “found so cute” that she “couldn’t help but love him.”
Gottfried’s longtime pal Jeff Ross also offered the grieving Gottfried some comedic relief by also poking fun at the actor’s frugal habits.
Gottfried lent his voice to the Aflac insurance company’s mascot. Pictured in 2010
Speaking of his friend, the 56-year-old stand-up comedian said Gottfried was “survived by his wife and sister, two amazing kids and over 12,000 little bottles of shampoo.”
“What a mitzvah. What a mission in life, what a goal in this world. And he wasn’t just funny, he was hilarious,” Ross recalled.
He joked, “He was risqué and provocative and subversive and so endearing that he could get away with jokes about skulls fucking a dead person. Not so fun, is it, Gilbert?’
Heartbreaking news: His family released a personal, heartfelt message to announce he has died of a “long illness”. Pictured in NYC in 2014
Ross also said he applauds Gottfried’s fearlessness and how he “shed light on the world’s darkest mysteries.”
“Gilbert took the pain out of our worst tragedies,” he joked, before discussing how he “virtually started canceling the culture when he got fired for playing a duck.”
Ross also sweetly played an audio recording of them singing “Sunrise, Sunset” from the hit musical “Fiddler on the Roof” as he discussed his boyfriend’s love of music.
As they asked participants to sing the first verse with him, many began to cry and “grabbed for their tissues,” according to Page Six.
Alan Zweibel, Sex and the City’s Mario Cantone, Dave Attell and Judy Gold also came to pay their respects.
Going all out: The star also starred in the 1990 film Problem Child and 2005’s The Aristocrats. Pictured 2016
When the late star’s family announced his death, they asked his fans to “laugh as loud as you can in Gilbert’s honor.”
Schwartz said Gottfried suffered from relapsing ventricular tachycardia, a form of heart failure, due to myotonic dystrophy type II.
Gottfried is perhaps best known as the voice of the cartoon character Iago in the 1992 film Aladdin. He was also behind the Aflac insurance company’s duck mascot.