Donald Glover Jokes That Lena Dunham Used the N-Word While Filming ‘Girls’: “Who Does She Think She Is, Chevy Chase?”

Donald Glover put his former costars on blast while presenting Atlanta executive producer Paul Simms with an honorary award at the 2023 Writers Guild Awards, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He made a few sly comments about Lena Dunham and Chevy Chase.

“Hello, I’m Donald Glover and I’m here to present Paul Simms with the Herb Sargent Award for Comedy Excellence,” the presenter said at the top of his speech. The Atlanta actor went on to explain that Herb Sargent was a former Saturday Night Live writer who developed the “Weekend Update” segment, which originally starred Glover’s Community colleague Chase. 

Glover joked, “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.”

His joke was met with laughter from the audience as he segued into chatting about Simms and his career, eventually mentioning Simms’ work as an executive producer on Girls.

Glover, who starred in the HBO hit for two episodes in the second season, recalled asking show creator Dunham about her experience with the famed producer. 

“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,” Glover began. “I asked Lena [Dunham], ‘Hey, what made you decide to work with Paul?’ And she goes ‘Honestly, this n**** lets me do whatever I want.’” 

He continued, “And I remember thinking two things. One, Lena is using the N-word extremely liberal with me. Who does she think she is, Chevy Chase? And two, that’s the kind of producer I want.”

---

UPDATE (3:30pm): A representative for Lena Dunham reached out to Decider with the following statement: “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.”

---

In a 2018 profile with The New Yorker, Glover opened up about his experience working on set of Community with Chase. He claimed that the older actor would purposefully “disrupt” his scenes and made demeaning racial jokes between takes, such as telling him, “People think you’re funnier because you’re Black.” 

Creator Dan Harmon backed Glover’s account of the events, stating, “Chevy was the first to realize how immensely gifted Donald was, and the way he expressed his jealousy was to try to throw Donald off.” Harmon also recalled apologizing to Glover “after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-P.C. verbiage.” 

Glover went on to tell the outlet, “I just saw Chevy as fighting time—a true artist has to be O.K. with his reign being over,” to which Chase responded, “I am saddened to hear that Donald perceived me in that light.”

As of now, a Community movie is in the works, with a majority of the original cast returning to reprise their roles. It has been rumored that Glover, Chase and Yvette Nicole Brown will not star; however, there’s been speculation that Glover is “down to clown.” Perhaps this comment was an olive branch of sorts, between comedians?