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| Harmon Leon’s Career After OJ Unseen: What Is the Writer Doing Now? |
In Investigation Discovery’s OJ Unseen: Exploitation Of Evil, Leon revisits his experience working behind the scenes on O.J. Simpson’s prank series Juiced. The four-part documentary looks beyond the material eventually associated with the project, bringing attention to the production process and the people who were there before the programme reached its intended audience. Leon’s involvement gives the story an unusually direct perspective, as he was not simply commenting from the outside but had first-hand experience of the production.
That chapter became an important part of Leon’s wider career, although it certainly does not define it. He has spent years moving between journalism, documentary work, comedy, photography, live events, publishing and production, collecting enough professional hats along the way to make a conventional job title feel slightly inadequate.
Leon began building his career in the early 2000s after studying at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, UCLA and the University of Minnesota. His journalism work eventually took him to a broad range of publications and platforms, including BBC, VICE, Wired, The Nation, The Observer, Details and National Geographic Traveler. From June 2008, he also worked as Editor-in-Chief at Dennis Publishing, adding another major responsibility to an already busy professional life.
His career has never been confined to writing at a desk. Leon has worked in event and video production, with involvement in major cultural events including the Edinburgh Festival, The Kennedy Center, Montreal’s Just for Laughs, Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and The New Yorker. He has also worked on podcasts including Paperless, This American Life and 99% Invisible, showing just how easily he has moved between different forms of storytelling.
The more recent stage of Leon’s career has taken an increasingly technological turn. Since January 2023, he has been creating and producing AI vs Human Roast Battle, combining artificial intelligence with the sort of comedy that presumably does not need much help finding a punchline. He later worked at The Defiant, where he held production leadership roles from December 2024 until November 2025.
His current work continues that mixture of technology and entertainment. Leon is now an AI Video Creator for Lemonlight and a Producer Editor of AI Film and Episodic Content at Inkitt, giving him a front-row seat to one of the biggest changes taking place in modern media production. He has also provided AI consultancy to companies including ByteDance, Dramagic and Eleven Labs, adding another layer to his already unusually varied professional portfolio.
Leon is also an established author. His published books include Meet the Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America, Tribespotting: Undercover Cult(ure) Stories, The American Dream, The Harmon Chronicles, Republican Like Me, The Infiltrator and National Lampoon’s Road Trip USA. His work has earned him Independent Publisher Awards for Humor for The Harmon Chronicles and Republican Like Me, further underlining that comedy has remained a serious part of his professional identity.
Outside his production and writing work, Leon remains active in live entertainment. He continues to produce AI vs Human Roast Battle and hosts That 80s Improv Challenge, a three-round gameshow whose latest America vs Heavy Metal Edition arrived in July 2026. He has also hosted TALE: NYC’s Finest Storytelling for more than a decade, giving performers a platform while keeping himself firmly in the middle of New York’s storytelling and comedy scene.
His creative interests extend into visual art, too, with Leon displaying artwork in galleries and continuing to work as a digital artist and photographer. He has also returned to his play Disco Sucks, which explores the infamous 1979 Disco Demolition Night. Away from work, his interests are considerably more ordinary: cycling around town, reading, going to gigs and enjoying the small details of everyday life.
There is something particularly amusing about Leon’s career trajectory because calling him simply an actor or writer barely scratches the surface. One minute he is discussing the strange history surrounding Juiced, then he is producing an AI comedy battle, writing a play, advising technology companies or appearing on a podcast. Most people collect hobbies; Leon appears to have accidentally collected entire careers.
His return to public attention through OJ Unseen therefore feels less like a comeback and more like another chapter in a career that has never really stood still. The documentary provides a fresh reason for audiences to discover him, but his current work shows that he has continued developing rather than simply looking backwards at an old television experience.
My view is that Harmon Leon is probably more interesting now than the single story that brought him back into the conversation. His connection to Juiced makes for an intriguing documentary thread, but it would be easy to overlook everything he has done since then. The combination of journalism, comedy, books, live events and AI production is genuinely unusual, even if it sounds like someone kept adding new jobs to his CV just to see when the page would finally give up.
What stands out most is his willingness to keep experimenting rather than settling into one familiar lane. His move towards AI filmmaking also feels particularly timely, considering how quickly that industry is changing. Whether every experiment works is another question, but at least Leon seems determined to keep trying something new.
For now, Harmon Leon remains very much active, with his work spanning AI video, episodic production, comedy, storytelling, writing, art and consulting. OJ Unseen may have reminded viewers of his connection to Juiced, but it certainly has not closed the book on what he is doing today. And with so many different projects already behind him, the more interesting question may be what Leon decides to tackle next. Did you know about his wider career beyond Juiced, or did OJ Unseen introduce you to his work for the first time?