Donald Glover Claims Tina Fey Told Him He Was a ‘Diversity Hire’ on 30 Rock

Donald Glover is opening up about his first writing job at 30 Rock and how he was told he was just a “diversity hire.”

In 2006, Glover was hired for the role while he was still a resident assistant. At the time, he said he often felt out of place.

“It definitely didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there,” he told GQ. “I used to have stress dreams every night where I was doing cartwheels on the top of a New York skyscraper with the other writers watching me.”

According to Glover, the series’ creator and actress Tina Fey told him that he had only been recruited to make the team more diverse.

“There is no animosity between us or anything like that, but [Tina Fey] said it herself… It was a diversity thing,” he said. “The last two people who were fighting for the job were me and Kenya Barris. I didn’t know it was between me and him until later. He hit me one day and he was like, ‘I hated you for years!’”