Fred Savage has been let go from his roles as executive producer and director of ABC’s revived The Wonder Years following an investigation into misconduct, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Savage faced three separate allegations and cooperated with the investigation, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
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“Recently, we were made aware of allegations of inappropriate conduct by Fred Savage, and as is policy, an investigation was launched,” Wonder Years producer 20th Television said in a statement. “Upon its completion, the decision was made to terminate his employment as an executive producer and director of The Wonder Years.”
Savage’s team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Though he had dabbled as an actor in recent years, with starring roles on Fox’s The Grinder and Netflix’s Friends From College, Savage has been considerably more active as a director over the last decade or two. After his star-making turn on the original The Wonder Years that premiered in 1988, Savage was the directing producer on creator Saladin K. Patterson’s series that launched in 2021, which Savage was intimately involved in from inception.
In March 2018, Youngjoo Hwang, a costumer on The Grinder, sued Savage and Fox, with claims including that he hit her arm and yelled at her not to touch him while she was dusting his outfit on set, and that he engendered a hostile environment for women. At the time, Fox shared a statement saying that a thorough investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Additionally, Savage issued a statement back then saying “none of the accusations being leveled at me are true.”
In an interview published earlier this year, Savage told THR that it took him time to agree to participate in a new version of The Wonder Years, which has yet to nab a second season.
“I had to kind of get over myself a bit and realize that we were telling a new story,” he said then. “Eventually, we moved forward with [Patterson] being the narrative-driving force and me being the connection to the past, keeping the tone and the shape of it consistent with the original. That’s how it started, and we went out and pitched it together, and it’s been an incredible partnership.”
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