Donald Glover recently made a rare appearance at the 2023 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday evening in New York. During his time on stage as he presented Atalanta executive producer Paul Simms with an honorary award, he touched on how his Community co-star Chevy Chase used a racial slur in his presence.
The Atlanta star-writer said in his speech that the award Simms was to receive was named after former Saturday Night Live writer Herb Sargent. Herb came up with the Chevy Chase-hosted segment on the show titled “Weekend Update.” Donald jokingly took a swipe at Chevy, saying:
“Chevy Chase once called Herb one of the funniest writers working in television. Chevy Chase once called me. You know what? This is about Paul.”
He later on mentioned the Chevy incident in more detail, this time mentioning Girls creator Lena Dunham as well:
“I was on the set of Girls after filming a sex scene for like eight hours, which they cut down to two minutes. I’ve never seen any of the rest of that footage. I asked Lena [Dunham], ‘Hey, what made you decide to work with Paul [Simms, an executive producer on the HBO hit]?’ And she goes ‘Honestly, this N— lets me do whatever I want.’
And I remember thinking two things. One, Lena is using the N-word extremely liberally. Who does she think she is, Chevy Chase? And two, that’s the kind of producer I want.”
After Donald’s speech spread on the internet, Lena’s rep released a statement, saying:
“Donald Glover told a joke referencing Lena Dunham for last night’s WGA Awards. It included, for effect, language Lena never used, nor would use.”
A representative for Donald then confirmed in an email that Donald’s joke about Lena was indeed just that – a joke.
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