Except nothing came of it. In 2022, The Daily Beast reported that Harris had been let go from the show “after having trouble meeting script deadlines.” HBO said Harris was “not fired from The Vanishing Half,” citing creative differences that were “part of the normal development process,” and called Harris “a valued collaborator.” He’s since worked with the network on a documentary about Slave Play called Slave Play. Not a Movie. A Play.
Harris, who calls the The Daily Beast “a gossip rag,” stands by his work. He fondly remembers a staff research trip to New Orleans that he organized and blames the show’s fate on systemic issues at the network. (The Daily Beast did not respond to a request for comment.)
“The reason the show didn’t happen is because the book was bought at a very specific time, in June of 2020,” Harris says. “HBO changed leadership within that time period. The Black woman who advocated for our show to be bought, and was our executive, left.” That woman, Kalia Booker King, departed to work for Sinners director Ryan Coogler’s production company, Proximity Media. But King’s departure wasn’t the only factor. “I don’t think that the pairing of our producers and me and Aziza as writers was necessarily fully a fit. I think that Issa Rae would’ve made an amazing version of the show in her own way. I don’t think she would’ve made the version that me and Aziza were making.” (Rae did not respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment. HBO and King declined to comment.)
Harris has been accused of caring more about his public persona than his written work. Several people I’ve spoken to—including a film and television actor and theater professionals—suggest he has been known to be unreliable, a natural consequence of being overcommitted and overextended. Harris’s talent, they agree, is undeniable. But there are concerns about his follow-through, according to these sources, none of whom were willing to go on the record for fear of alienating Harris, who has a penchant for responding publicly and ferociously to his critics. (See: Jesse Green, Young Jean Lee.) Fear of retaliation notwithstanding, a question hangs over this gifted writer’s head: Is he self-obsessed, or are people just obsessed with him?
“He loves to take on more than he should,” says his former CAA agent, Ross Weiner, reflecting on the roughly eight years he spent representing Harris before he left the industry. “But it was always a good thing.” As of this story’s publication, Harris has no less than six projects in various states of development on IMDb Pro, including The Wives and the seemingly abandoned The Vanishing Half.
Some past collaborators praise him even when the project doesn’t work out. Sydney Baloue, a writer on The Vanishing Half, calls Harris “the creative genius of our time” and said he had an “incredible” experience working on the show. “Jeremy is a brilliant writer,” says Allain. “He and Aziza put together an incredible room of writers who delivered several knockout scripts. Sadly, not everything in development gets made.”
On December 15, 2024, Barnes died by suicide. “I was the person that had to call everyone from the writers room and tell them,” Harris remembers. “The thing that got me through was thinking about the fact that there are so many parties Aziza just didn’t want to be at. No matter how social I tried to ask them to be….” He takes a beat. “Life is sort of a party that none of us asked to be invited to. I don’t know that it’s my place to demand that someone stay, while also having a lot of sadness that they’re gone.”
You’re going to go to this play with me now,” Harris commands as we finish our meal at Dimes. It’s called Trophy Boys, an off-Broadway production directed by Tony winner Danya Taymor and starring The Gilded Age’s Louisa Jacobson—another close friend of Harris’s from his Yale days. Though this wasn’t the plan, one doesn’t say no to Harris. I get the check.
On the way, he rolls calls—putting out more theatrical fires while texting Gerber. There’s a controversial big-time producer who wants to see Prince Faggot. “I’m going to get him in tomorrow,” Harris tells one of his agents over the phone. “I have reached out to the man many times. I’m telling you right now: If this man loved me, if he was obsessed with me, if he needed me, he would call me every hour on the hour till I answer.”
