Dan Harmon has a habit of landing himself in controversies, and he’s notoriously open about his flaws. On New Year’s Eve, the Community and Rick and Morty creator went ahead and flat-out called himself an asshole, vowing to do better in 2018—leading a former Community writer and producer to call him out for mistreating her during her time on the show.
Harmon got back to Ganz—who left Community after season four and went on to write for Modern Family and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia—apologizing in vague terms for treating her “like garbage.” The back-and-forth never cleared up exactly what happened between the two, but as Ganz tells it, whatever Harmon did scarred her.
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Harmon then turned the conversation toward himself, explaining that he built a “wall” between he and his co-workers in the wake of what happened with Ganz.
Ultimately, Harmon offered to make an (even more?) public apology to Ganz, vowing to acknowledge his behavior in any way she might want him to, before working in a cringeworthy pun about mansplaining.
It’s not clear exactly what happened between Harmon and Ganz, but his response is a lot more measured than some of his scathing Twitter screeds. Recently, he’s publicly tried to defend—not denigrate—women he currently works with. After a horde of Rick and Morty fans started terrorizing the show’s female writers online, Harmon spoke out against the mob, saying he’s “made no bones about the fact that I loathe these people” and their “disgusting,” “testosterone-based subculture.”
At the very least, it does look like Harmon is trying, in his own words, to be “Not as Much of an Asshole.”
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