When Jeff Garlin left the popular ABC sitcom The Goldbergs in 2021, he declared that he was not fired from the show, but that he left after a joke he made was thought to have created an “unsafe workspace.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair that same year, Garlin admitted, “HR has come to me three years in a row for my behavior on set,” but said that he disagreed with any assessment of bad behavior, claiming “whoever it is that feels this way has it out for me.”

A new exposé, which is part of journalist Maureen Ryan’s book, Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood, reveals even more about Garlin’s behavior, alleging that the general atmosphere on the set of The Goldbergs was “a big boys club of men who were probably always kind of the dorks in high school that got picked on, then all of a sudden, they had this power,” and that Garlin in particular used his “power and status to intimidate and demean everyone on this crew,” per People.

Sources in the book describe Garlin’s behavior as “harassing, disparaging or physically problematic.”

The book claims that Garlin was also investigated by the HR department at HBO for his behavior on the set of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and that there was at least one legal settlement with a former Curb Your Enthusiasm employee who was affected by Garlin’s behavior.

In his 2021 interview with Vanity Fair, which was conducted by Ryan, Garlin referred to his problematic humor as a matter of opinion, at one point saying, “I’m a comedian and I’m sorry, but boundaries are meant to be broken.”