'Parks And Recreation' Exec Harris Wittels Dead At Age 30

Harris Wittels, one of the executive producers of the successful NBC comedy ‘Parks and Recreation’, has died at his home in Los Angeles of a suspected drug overdose. He was just 30 years old.

According to TMZ and later confirmed to NBC News, police officers pronounced Wittels dead around 1 p.m. on Thursday (February 19th). Sources say that the officers found drug paraphernalia around his house but no other signs of trauma to his body.

The cause of death has not yet been established and will be determined by a coroner, but The Hollywood Reporter writes that his body was discovered by his assistant, who made a 911 call in the early afternoon.

Wittels had been to rehab twice in the past, as he has long battled with drug addiction and spoken openly about it. Just the night before, he had performed a set of stand-up comedy at L.A.’s Comedy Theater, during which he said that was clean and sober.

More: Paul Rudd re-joining ‘Parks And Recreation’ for final season in February

Aside from his involvement with ‘Parks and Recreation’, whose final season is set to wrap up with the broadcast of the season finale set to air next week, Wittels wrote and did production work for ‘Eastbound and Down’ and ‘The Sarah Silverman Show’.

He is credited with coining the social media phrase ‘humblebrag’, described as tendency for tweeters to make boasts but disguised with false modesty, operating a similarly-titled Twitter account as a platform to call out celebrities and even going so far as to publish a book about it in 2012.

Wittels was also a member of a band called Don’t Stop Or We’ll Die, alongside fellow comedy writers Paul Rust and Michael Cassady. He appeared several times on popular comedy podcasts including ‘Comedy Bang Bang’ and his sometime platform ‘Analyze Phish’.

More: ‘Parks And Recreation’ will finish after Season 7. Now go away and cry.