Gilbert Gottfried’s widow Dara Kravitz paid tribute to legendary standup comic with a hilarious eulogy that would have made her husband proud.
While tearfully remembering her latespouse, just days after he died, at 67, from a heart abnormality, the film producer, 52, memorialized his cheeky sense of humor and, at times, crude jokes.
‘I loved his heart and soul, his jokes were dirty but his heart was so pure,’ she tearfully recalled during the memorial service at the Riverside Memorial Chapel in New York City on Thursday.
In memory: Gilbert Gottfried’s widow Dara Kravitz paid tribute to legendary standup comic with a hilarious eulogy that would have made her husband proud; pictured in 2017
She continued: ‘Our relationship was so special that whatever I say it’s not enough.’
Kravitz went on to recall meeting her spouse at a Grammys party, held at Tavern on the Green, in 1997, when she was 27 and he was 42.
‘I was there because I was in the music business and he was there for the free food,’ she quipped, nodding to Gottfried’s reputation for being cheap. ‘Some food fell off my plate and Gilbert picked it up and put it on his plate.’
Farewell: Gottfried was put to rest at Riverside Memorial Chapel (pictured)
Sad farewell: Gottfried has died at the age of 67, his family announced Tuesday on Twitter
The mom-of-two continued: ‘I thought it was a bit odd but I’ve always been a bit attracted to odd people. He looked incredibly sweet and a bit lost and I felt bad for him so I was nice to him and then he asked for my phone number and the rest is history.’
Kravitz kept the crowd laughing as she recalled him ordering a single rice pudding for them to share at the Moonstruck diner.
‘I thought it was a little odd,’ she confessed. ‘He couldn’t order two rice puddings?’
Longtime character actor an comedian Gilbert Gottfried has died at the age of 67 (pictured in 1990)
Gottfried famously lent his voice to the Aflac Insurance duck mascot. Pictured in 2010
‘I don’t know how to explain the uniqueness of our relationship,’ she said. ‘I was young, outgoing and social. Gilbert was shy and introverted. We were opposites but like two pieces of a puzzle we fit perfectly together. (For) the next 10 frigging years we dated. He would come over every night and watch TV because I actually paid for cable.’
After ten years of dating, in 2007, she told their loved ones he finally convinced Gottfried to get order his fear or marriage and fatherhood.
‘Eventually he took the plunge and trusted me,’ Kravitz said of them finally tying the knot and welcoming their two kids Lily, 14, and Max, 12.
Heartbreaking news: His family posted a personal, heartfelt message to announce he died from a ‘long illness.’ Pictured in 2014 in NYC
But before he could move into her apartment, she told him: ‘Please try and get rid of some of your hotel soaps.’
‘They filled up an entire second bedroom of his apartment. He asked his sisters if they needed any soap, they said, ‘Only big bars,’ she remembered.
‘So Gilbert being Gilbert stayed up the entire frigging night opening up those little wrappers, running the soaps under water, mashing them together to make big bars,’ Kravitz added.
Ultimately, she said ‘he gave his sisters a garbage bag filled with custom-made mashed-up soaps,’ which she ‘thought that was so sweet’ she ‘couldn’t help but love him.’
He gave it his all: The star was also in the movie Problem Child in 1990 and The Aristocrats in 2005. Pictured in 2016
