Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon has finally addressed this year's saga of since-dropped domestic violence and sexual assault allegations against — and the consequent ousting of — co-creator and lead voice actor Justin Roiland.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the creative force behind the beloved cartoon and Community admitted that it's been easiest for him to not say anything about the controversy surrounding his former collaborator.
"The easiest thing for me to say about Justin has been nothing. Easy because he isolated so well and easy because I'm nobody's first choice as a judge of anything or anyone," he told the publication's Lacey Rose.
Harmon continued, "This is where I'd love to change the subject to myself, to what a piece of crap I've been my whole public life," likely referring to his own 2018 misconduct reckoning when Community writer Megan Ganz accused him of sexual harassment. "I would feel so safe and comfortable making this about me, but that trick is worthless here and dangerous to others. It's other people's safety and comfort that got damaged while I obsessed over a cartoon's quality. Trust has now been violated between countless people and a show designed to please them."
"I'm frustrated, ashamed, and heartbroken that a lot of hard work, joy, and passion can be leveraged to exploit and harm strangers," he added of the latest allegations against Roiland, published in an NBC News report earlier this month in which 11 people accused the animator of using his fame from the show to pursue them sexually. (The voice actor denied the accusations, calling them "false and defamatory.")
Harmon said that he didn't participate in the talent search to replace Roiland for Season 7 out of denial: "It's all just sad because the goal is for it to be indistinguishable; at the same time, it would be absurd to suddenly decide that the entire foundation of your creative project was, oh, coincidentally, unimportant."
The creator also spoke about the dissolution of his relationship with Roiland, tensions having emerged between the two following Rick and Morty's first season. According to Harmon, his bolstering the show with professional TV writers was seen by Roiland as an attempt to make it his show.
"If anything, what I wanted was for Justin and I both to be able to be increasingly lazy and not show up for work," Harmon explained. "That was the dream. We'd be these rich idea men."
He said that his final exchange with Roiland was in a series of fraught text messages in 2019. "[Roiland] said things that he'd never said before about being unhappy, and I remember saying to him the last time we spoke in person, like, 'I am worried about you, and I don't know what to do about that except to give you all the string and also just say I'm scared that you're not going to come back.' But then this conversation became unprecedentedly confrontational," Harmon recalled.
"At that point, we're no longer both there for it, and it starts to become not only unfair for me to continue but totally uncomfortable because, from there, a friendship goes away, and I still don't fully understand why," he added.
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the creative force behind the beloved cartoon and Community admitted that it's been easiest for him to not say anything about the controversy surrounding his former collaborator.
"The easiest thing for me to say about Justin has been nothing. Easy because he isolated so well and easy because I'm nobody's first choice as a judge of anything or anyone," he told the publication's Lacey Rose.
Harmon continued, "This is where I'd love to change the subject to myself, to what a piece of crap I've been my whole public life," likely referring to his own 2018 misconduct reckoning when Community writer Megan Ganz accused him of sexual harassment. "I would feel so safe and comfortable making this about me, but that trick is worthless here and dangerous to others. It's other people's safety and comfort that got damaged while I obsessed over a cartoon's quality. Trust has now been violated between countless people and a show designed to please them."
"I'm frustrated, ashamed, and heartbroken that a lot of hard work, joy, and passion can be leveraged to exploit and harm strangers," he added of the latest allegations against Roiland, published in an NBC News report earlier this month in which 11 people accused the animator of using his fame from the show to pursue them sexually. (The voice actor denied the accusations, calling them "false and defamatory.")
Harmon said that he didn't participate in the talent search to replace Roiland for Season 7 out of denial: "It's all just sad because the goal is for it to be indistinguishable; at the same time, it would be absurd to suddenly decide that the entire foundation of your creative project was, oh, coincidentally, unimportant."
The creator also spoke about the dissolution of his relationship with Roiland, tensions having emerged between the two following Rick and Morty's first season. According to Harmon, his bolstering the show with professional TV writers was seen by Roiland as an attempt to make it his show.
"If anything, what I wanted was for Justin and I both to be able to be increasingly lazy and not show up for work," Harmon explained. "That was the dream. We'd be these rich idea men."
He said that his final exchange with Roiland was in a series of fraught text messages in 2019. "[Roiland] said things that he'd never said before about being unhappy, and I remember saying to him the last time we spoke in person, like, 'I am worried about you, and I don't know what to do about that except to give you all the string and also just say I'm scared that you're not going to come back.' But then this conversation became unprecedentedly confrontational," Harmon recalled.
"At that point, we're no longer both there for it, and it starts to become not only unfair for me to continue but totally uncomfortable because, from there, a friendship goes away, and I still don't fully understand why," he added.