'Dan Harmon, I forgive you': Community writer Megan Ganz accepts Ricky & Morty creator's lengthy apology for misconduct on Harmontown podcast

Earlier this year, a former writer on the sitcom Community, Megan Ganz, accused showrunner Dan Harmon of inappropriate behaviour while they were both working on the show.

Writing on Twitter, Ganz kept things relatively vague, stating: “It took me years to believe in my talents again, to trust a boss when he complimented me and not cringe when he asked for my number. I was afraid to be enthusiastic, knowing it might be turned against me later.”

Harmon later apologised on social media, saying he was ”disgusted and sorry that I stained our show and your talent with my selfish, childish shit.”

The comments were picked up by various publications, the final word coming from Ganz, who wrote: “It’s good to recognise power dynamics, but it’s also good to recognise you’re no different from those you employ.

"You’re not a king on a hilltop, nor a beast in a labyrinth. Isolation isn’t always best. Connection breeds empathy. Empathy allows growth.”

Just over a week later and Harmon has spoken about the incident on the podcast HarmonTown, explaining how he wants to be “part of the solution and not the problem”. Listen here from the 18-minute mark.

Following a disclaimer, Harmon was candid about what happened: “In 2000-and-something-something, I had the privilege of running a network sitcom… And I was attracted to a writer that I had power over because I was a showrunner.

“I knew enough to know that these feelings were bad news. I knew that they ran the risk of undercutting people’s faith in my judgement, her faith in her talent, the other writers’ respect for me… I knew I wasn’t doing anybody any favours by feeling these things. So, I did the easiest, laziest, cowardly thing to do with these feelings and I didn’t deal with them.

“In not dealing with them, I made everyone else deal with them, especially her. Flirty, creepy — everything other than overtly enough to constitute betraying your girlfriend to whom you’re going home every night.”

Eventually, the showrunner broke up with his girlfriend, reasoning that, by breaking up that relationship, those feeling towards the writer — who remains unnamed during the podcast — would become acceptable. However, Harmon admits to becoming more “creepy” as he was not worried about being a bad person anymore, eventually becoming overt about those feelings even telling her ‘I love you’.

The writer, though, said the same thing she had said the entire time, which Harmon surmises as: “Please, don’t you see why preferring me like this — liking me like this — I can’t say no to it, and when you do it, it makes me unable to know whether I’m good at my job.”

After the advances were rejected, Harmon “wanted to teach her a lesson” and decided to be harsher on the writer, resenting the writer, all the time knowing he “wrote her pay cheques. I controlled whether she stayed or went… and said horrible things. Just treated her cruelly. Things I would never, ever, ever had done had she been male and I if had never had those feelings for her.”

“I lied to myself about it,” Harmon says. “I lost my job. I ruined my show. I betrayed the audience. I destroyed everything. And I damaged her internal compass. And I moved on.

“I never did it before, and I would never do it again. And I certainly would not have been able to if I had any respect for women. On a fundamental level I was thinking about them as different creatures. I was thinking of the ones that I liked as having some special role in my life. I did it all by not thinking about it. So, I just want to say — in addition to being sorry — I did it by not thinking about it… And if she had not mentioned it on Twitter I would not have to talk about it. All I can say, no matter what position you’re in, just think about it.”

Harmon said that by thinking and talking about these issues, the culture can hopefully get to a better place.

Ganz has since responded to the podcast, writing on Twitter: “Last week, I called out my former boss Dan Harmon for sexual harassment, and today I’m going to ask you to listen to his podcast.” Read the messages below, the final one reading: “And so, Dan Harmon, I forgive you.”

After writing episodes of Community between 2010 and 2013, Ganz went on to work on Modern Family, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and The Last Man on Earth. Harmon acts as showrunner on Rick and Morty, the third season on which was broadcast last year.