“Community” creator Dan Harmon issued a lengthy public apology on Thursday to Megan Ganz, the former “Community” writer who accused him of sexual harassment, an apology Ganz herself has hailed as a model for all future public statements of apology.
“I was attracted to a writer that I had power over because I was a showrunner,” Harmon said on his “Harmontown” podcast, before launching into a lengthy run-down of his behavior. In the apology, which comes at about 18 minutes and 30 seconds into the episode, titled “Don’t Let Him Wipe Or Flush,” Harmon dissected his relationship to Ganz as her boss, her suitor and, eventually, the man who tried to ruin her career out of spite.
“I knew enough to know that these feelings were bad news,” he said of his early attraction to Ganz. “That was easy enough to know. I knew that they ran the risk of undercutting people’s faith in my judgement, her faith in her talent, the other writer’s respect for me, the entire production, the audience. I knew that I wasn’t doing anybody any favors by feeling these things.”
Ganz, who parted ways with “Community” in 2013 before moving on to work on programs including “Modern Family” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” first brought up the harassment on Twitter last week, writing in response to Harmon, who hadn’t yet relayed the specifics of the harassment or Ganz’s name.
“Care to be more specific? Redemption follows allocution,” she tweeted, adding, “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.”
Harmon responded, saying he was “deeply sorry,” adding he is “disgusted and sorry that I stained our show and your talent with my selfish, childish sh–.”
On Thursday he gave a greater account of his behavior, explaining that he was “cowardly” and “selfish” in handling his attraction to Ganz, his employee.
“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. I said horrible things, just treated her cruelly, pointedly. Things I would’ve never ever done if she had been male or if I didn’t have those feelings for her.”
Harmon expressed regret over his treatment of Ganz.
“I lost my job. I ruined my show. I betrayed the audience. I destroyed everything, and I damaged her internal compass,” he said. “I moved on, and I never did it before and I’ll never do it again, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it if I had any respect for women. On a fundamental level, I was thinking about them as different creatures. I was thinking about the ones that I liked as having some special role in my life. I did it all by not thinking about it.”
Ganz shared the episode Thursday on Twitter, asking her followers to listen to Harmon’s “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 wrote, explaining that she both accepted the apology in private and was offering her forgiveness publicly.
“This was never about vengeance; it’s about vindication,” she wrote. “That’s why it didn’t feel right to just accept his apology in private (although I did that, too). Because if any part of this process should be done in the light, it’s the forgiveness part. And so, @danharmon, I forgive you.”
https://twitter.com/meganganz/status/951373399929978881
https://twitter.com/meganganz/status/951373403625177088
https://twitter.com/meganganz/status/951373406141743105