Dan Harmon, the creator of the TV series “Community,” claimed in a new interview that Chevy Chase would make racist jokes directed at Donald Glover while filming the show. (Splash News)
Dan Harmon, the creator of “Community” and the co-creator of “Rick and Morty,” came under fire for sexual harassment last week when a former writer publicly called him out for his past misconduct. Now that same writer is publicly forgiving him after calling his lengthy apology a “masterclass.”
As previously reported, Megan Ganz, a writer whose work includes “Modern Family,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “Last Man on Earth” and “Community” aired some grievances on Twitter after Harmon commented on all the sexual harassment in Hollywood that’s been going on. Harmon was contrite in his response, but it wasn’t until he had a chance to speak on his podcast that he gave a clearer picture of what happened in the past with Ganz.
In the latest episode of “Harmontown,” the series creator explained that he was attracted to Ganz while he was her boss on "Community," and had a live-in girlfriend. He says he recognized that those feelings were bad news, but continued to lie to himself about them.
“And so I did the cowardly easiest laziest thing you could do with feelings like that and I didn’t deal with them, and in not dealing with them, I made everybody else deal with them,” he said. “Especially her.”
He eventually broke up with his girlfriend in an effort to justify his attraction to another woman. Soon after, he claims he told Ganz he loved her, but she didn’t share his feelings. Furthermore, she tried to explain that his feelings for her, as her boss, made it difficult to know if she was any good at her job. Afterwards, he admits to treating her poorly for her response.
“And that was probably the darkest of it all. I’m going to assume that when she tweets about it and refers to trauma that that’s probably it, because I drank, I took pills, I crushed on her and resented her for not reciprocating it," he said. "And the entire time, I was the one writing her paychecks and in control of whether she stayed or went and whether she felt good about herself or not, and said horrible things, just treated her cruelly, pointedly. Things that I would never ever ever have done if she had been male and if I had never had those feelings for her.”
The day the podcast was released, Ganz took to Twitter to urge her followers to actually listen to what Harmon had to say.
“Please listen to it,” she wrote in a Twitter thread. “It’s only seven minutes long, but it is a masterclass in How to Apologize. He’s not rationalizing or justifying or making excuses. He doesn’t just vaguely acknowledge some general wrongdoing in the past. He gives a full account.”
She ended her thread noting that if any part of this process should be done in the public eye, it should be the forgiveness part.
“So, @danharmon, I forgive you.”
You can listen to the podcast on the “Harmontown” website, where the apology begins at the 18:40 mark. You can also read the full transcript of what he said on Splitsider.
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