Amid an HR investigation into his onset conduct and weeks after mocking the hit show in his standup, comedian Jeff Garlin is leaving The Goldbergs - here's why. One of The Goldbergs' initial show-selling stars, largely playing off his success as a fan-favorite supporting character in Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, Garlin has been a regular on the ABC comedy show since its debut in 2013. Garlin has insisted that he wasn't fired from the show, but rather that his departure was mutual between him and Sony, The Goldbergs' production company.
Playing one of The Goldbergs' main characters, Garlin's departure isn't ideal, not least of all because it comes midway through the series' ninth season. Prior to leaving the show, Garlin starred as Murray Goldberg, the short-tempered patriarch of the titular Goldberg family. Produced by Adam F. Goldberg, Seth Gordon, and Doug Robinson, The Goldbergs is based on Adam F. Goldberg's childhood in "1980-something," with Garlin's character serving as the family's tough-love counterpart to actress Wendi McLendon-Covey's Beverly Goldberg, the family's overprotective matriarch. With Garlin now out of the picture, no decision has been made yet on whether or not The Goldbergs will be renewed for season 10.
Reportedly, Garlin only had one more week of work left for the season, making his decision to leave all the more remarkable. However, the reasoning behind Garlin's decision to leave The Goldbergs, as per an interview with Vanity Fair, essentially comes down Garlin's frustrations with the show's "politically correct" atmosphere, in addition to his disfavor with The Goldbergs' style of comedy. Garlin specifically noted how shocked he was that saying the word "vagina" in jest put him in hot water with HR - with this sort of "silly" behavior, he felt, being typical of comedians and not a form of malicious or unusually inappropriate misconduct.
While Garlin's issues with HR have been recurrent throughout the past three years, the schism between Jeff Garlin and The Goldbergs seemed to officially manifest after the comedian trashed the TV series in front of a packed crowd during a standup comedy show at the Hollywood Improv on November 24, 2021 - the same day as Garlin's Vanity Fair interview, in which he echoed the same complaints about The Goldbergs' political correctness that he expressed on the comedy stage. In addressing his misconduct allegations to Vanity Fair, Garlin largely expressed annoyance with the allegations, stating that much of his behavior that irked his Goldbergs' colleagues was welcomed by the Curb Your Enthusiasm crew. He also added that "if someone is offended indirectly by what I'm saying, and they don't think it's funny, my response is 'Get over it.'"
Though Garlin stated that The Goldbergs is "not for me" during his standup show in LA, he did admit that he is proud that the show has been so successful and well-received as a family-friendly sitcom - even though Garlin also subsequently admitted that the only reason he stayed on for so long was "money!" No doubt, after years of attuning his comedic sensibilities to the notoriously anti-PC stylings of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jeff Garlin likely feels like a fish out of water (or, more properly, a fish in hot water) with The Goldbergs' more wholesome TV-14 (versus Curb's TV-MA) sense of humor. Nonetheless, while the outcome of Garlin's HR investigation remains to be seen, the seemingly mutual decision for Jeff Garlin to leave The Goldbergs makes his departure seem sincere and final, throwing the hit series' future into jeopardy.