Dan Harmon, the creative mind behind Rick and Morty and Community, deleted his Twitter account Monday morning after a video he made years before resurfaced online.
The video in question was a spoof of the Showtime series Dexter and featured Harmon’s character traveling back in time to stop serial killers by sexually assaulting them when they were infants. In the sketch, Harmon is seen breaking into a house and simulating rape on an infant doll.
“In 2009, I made a ‘pilot’ which strove to parody the series Dexter and only succeeded in offending,” Harmon said in a statement acquired by The Hollywood Reporter. “I quickly realized the content was way too distasteful and took the video down immediately. Nobody should ever have to see what you saw and for that, I sincerely apologize.”
Harmon, who currently runs the wildly successful Rick and Morty on Adult Swim, deleted his Twitter account and all its tweets following the video’s resurfacing. The move comes on the heels of filmmaker James Gunn being fired at Disney after controversial tweets of his from a decade ago resurfaced.
In a statement obtained by THR, the network said, “At Adult Swim, we seek out and encourage creative freedom and look to push the envelope in many ways, particularly around comedy. The offensive content of Dan’s 2009 video that recently surfaced demonstrates poor judgement and does not reflect the type of content we seek out. Dan recognized his mistake at the time and has apologized. He understands there is no place for this type of content here at Adult Swim.”
No changes have been made to Harmon’s employment at the network.
