Speaking out. Jeff Garlin got candid about his mental health nine months after he left The Goldbergs amid an on-set investigation into his behavior.
The 60-year-old comedian revealed that he is bipolar and is struggling with the disorder, which is characterized by periods of depression and mania, per Mayo Clinic.
“Bipolar is a motherf—ker. Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with,” Garlin shared via Instagram on Tuesday, September 21. “I’m doing the best I can. This is the first time that I’ve opened up about this. #bipolar.”
The actor shared his diagnosis one day before the season 10 premiere of The Goldbergs — where it will be revealed that his character, the Goldberg family patriarch Murray, has died.
“[Murray] will have passed, and we are sort of starting from a place of multiple months removed from his death,” co-showrunner Alex Barnow told Entertainment Weekly last month about the fate of Garlin’s character, whom he portrayed for nine seasons prior to his controversial exit.
“The family has already grieved. … This is going to be a family that has not reconciled the fact that their father’s gone but has sort of moved on and has dealt with a lot of that,” Barnow added.
The decision to kill off Murray comes several months after an HR investigation was conducted in regard to Garlin’s on-set behavior.
“It’s always the same thing. It’s about me and my silliness on set. They don’t think it’s appropriate. I do,” the Curb Your Enthusiasm alum told Vanity Fair in December 2021, claiming that HR had discussed the behavior with him multiple times over three years. “That’s where we’re at. I’ve not been fired because of it. We just think differently.”
The Daddy Day Care actor was accused of making inappropriate comments to crew members, including an alleged incident in which he repeated “vagina” to a female crew member after she initially complained about Garlin’s use of the word.
Though the stand-up comic maintained that he did nothing wrong during his time on the Goldbergs set, he offered an apology to anyone he worked with who felt “greatly uncomfortable” or “hurt” by his behavior.
“I’m sorry, I truly am sorry, to have hurt anyone’s feelings, or made anyone feel greatly uncomfortable,” he shared with Vanity Fair at the time.
In addition to Garlin, many celebrities — including Kanye West, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Mariah Carey, Johnny Manziel and more — are diagnosed with bipolar disorder and have been candid about their struggles with the mental health issue.
