At the Writers Guild Awards on Sunday (March 5th), Donald Glover joked about Chevy Chase using the N-word on the set of Community while presenting Atlanta executive producer Paul Simms with an honorary award.
“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,” Glover joked.
Later, he recalled working with Lena Dunham on the set of Girls. “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.”
On Monday (March 6th), Dunham’s representatives released a statement to The Independent that read, “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. Full stop.”
As for Chase, Community showrunner Dan Harmon said in a 2018 interview with The New Yorker that Chase would “make racial cracks between takes” because he was “jealous” of Glover.