Jeff Garlin, who recently gave a lengthy interview about misconduct claims against him on The Goldbergs, has left the show after nine seasons.
Deadline reported Thursday that Garlin and Sony Pictures Television have negotiated a mutual agreement securing the comedian’s exit. No decision has been made regarding the ABC sitcom’s potential cancellation or renewal. A source told Deadline that in spite of the show’s otherwise supportive work environment, Garlin was “extremely verbally and emotionally abusive” on set.
Earlier this month, Garlin gave an interview to Maureen Ryan for Vanity Fair in which he opened up about some of the alleged incidents on set. He denied he’d been fired from the show and described one of the incidents that apparently sparked the misconduct probe “completely silly.”
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A source described Garlin’s conflict with two stand-ins, a married couple, to Deadline. Garlin allegedly screamed at the female stand-in to “get the fuck out of my way” as she walked down a ramp. The actor then allegedly proceeded to tell the male stand-in, “Tell your wife to get the fuck out of my way.”
Speaking with Ryan, Garlin said the moment was “misconstrued.” Human resources, he said, “has come to me three years in a row for my behavior on set.”
“My opinion is, I have my process about how I’m funny, in terms of the scene and what I have to do,” Garlin said. “They feel that it makes for a quote ‘unsafe’ workspace. Now, mind you, my silliness making an unsafe workspace—I don’t understand how that is… I make mistakes, sure. But my comedy is about easing people’s pain. Why would I ever want to cause pain in anybody for a laugh? That’s bullying. That’s just uncalled for.”
“I am sorry to tell you that there really is no big story,” Garlin later added. “Unless you want to do a story about political correctness.”
Even as far back as 2019, Garlin was underplaying the allegations about his on-set behavior on The Goldbergs. In November of that year, the actor told The Daily Beast’s Matt Wilstein that he “dared” the show to fire him.
“I dared them to fire me. Look, I’m a pretty normal guy, but when I stand up from a couch, I tend to say, ‘Ugh, my vagina.’ Just because it’s fun and it’s silly,” Garlin said on Wilstein's The Last Laugh podcast. “Or I might put two words together that don’t belong together like ‘grandma’ and ‘cock.’ But when I’m saying these types of things, there’s no context. They’re non-sequiturs. And they’re silly. And to me, they’re joyful and they keep my energy up, especially when I’m doing The Goldbergs when I have to do the same scene over and over that’s not exactly Paddy Chayevsky. It’s not classically written. It’s excellent, I love the writers, don’t get me wrong. So to keep myself present, I say silly things.”
He continued: “Someone complained. They were uncomfortable with it. I don’t say anything disrespectful to any man or woman directly, in a sincere way. So I found myself in the Sony human resources [office] and they were really serious. And one of the executives said, ‘What if TMZ finds out about this?’ And I said, ‘Please let TMZ find out.’ That will be the first time I’ll ever do an interview with TMZ and I’ll tell them that it’s all true. Because we have to stop the silliness.”
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, former recurring player Bryan Callen left the show last year following sexual misconduct allegations from multiple women. (Callen denied the allegations at the time.) Sony Pictures Television—which produces The Goldbergs and provided no comment regarding Garlin when reached by Deadline and THR—also faced a major controversy this year surrounding Mike Richards, who was set to replace Alex Trebek as host of Jeopardy before his own unsavory history caught up with him.
For more, listen to the full conversation with Jeff Garlin on The Last Laugh podcast.
