Justin Roiland’s Alleged Toxic Behavior Included Telling a Woman ‘Go Into Sexual Slavery’
“Rick & Morty” co-creator Justin Roiland has new allegations following the explosive #MeToo reckoning in early 2023.
The executive producer and voice actor behind series “Koala Man” and “Solar Opposites” was charged with felony domestic violence in January stemming from a 2020 incident with a former girlfriend. While Roiland has maintained his innocence, disturbing toxic workplace accusations led to Roiland being fired from Adult Swim and getting the boot from a lucrative overall Disney’s 20th Television Animation deal, with Hulu also releasing a statement. The video game studio Roiland co-founded in 2016 called Squanch Games also announced his resignation as CEO.
However, a new The Hollywood Reporter exposé alleges that Roiland was an elusive presence on the shows bearing his name for years, with “Rick & Morty” co-creator Dan Harmon not on speaking terms with Roiland for “multiple seasons” of the hit series. Staffers for “Solar Opposites” and “Koala Man” noted they have never actually met Roiland or seen him in Zoom meetings.
Former Mad magazine editor Allie Goertz and writer of an upcoming “Rick & Morty” concept album shared that Roiland direct messaged her asking, “Can you write a song about 9 Dick’s of different sized and ethnic origins hanging above your face, and then in the lyrics describe how they each splatter you with semen [?].” Roiland additionally sent pornographic GIFs and propositioned her.
Goertz told THR, “I really think that he, in a lot of ways, took advantage of someone who couldn’t have been a bigger fan.”
Roiland allegedly wrote to another, then-underaged woman, who uploaded the exchange on Twitter, “You should just run away from home and go into sex slavery YOU FUCKING STUPID FAGGOT BITCH (!!!) (Jk).”
The “Rick & Morty” writers’ room saw similar behavior, welcoming famous fans of the show like Kanye West and porn star Riley Reid into the production offices and marking the rare occasion Roiland showed up to work.
After the first group of female writers were hired during Season 3 of the Adult Swim series, is behavior allegedly shifted. Multiple sources told THR that Roiland sent a female employee a “really creepy” text late at night, asking her to come to his home for an implied threesome with his partner. “She didn’t want to run it up the flagpole, and then it was just this really fucked-up, awkward thing,” a source said.
Roiland had a sexual harassment allegation against him by the end of the 2020 season, resulting in Carton Network conducting a formal investigation into his inappropriate behavior.
An additional source claimed Roiland lacked focus at the office, citing that writers would “regularly walk over to a Toys R Us, where they would buy action figures or Nerf guns” per THR, as the source noted then Roiland “played with them the rest of the day and we couldn’t get any work done.”
Roiland attorney T. Edward Welbourn told IndieWire in January that it is “hard to overstate how inaccurate the recent media coverage of this situation has been” in regards to Roiland’s pending felony domestic violence case.
“To be clear, not only is Justin innocent but we also have every expectation that this matter is on course to be dismissed once the District Attorney’s office has completed its methodical review of the evidence,” Welbourn said. “We look forward to clearing Justin’s name and helping him move forward as swiftly as possible.”
