Lena Waithe: Aziz Ansari decided not to be the focus of Master of None Season 3 "long before" his sexual misconduct controversy

Variety

Waithe says the Master of None Presents: Moments in Love season was the result of Ansari and her deciding to focus on her Denise character shortly after they won an Emmy for writing the Season 2 Denise-themed "Thanksgiving" episode. “I think after the Thanksgiving episode, it really gave us even more confidence to do what we would already wanted to do,” she tells Variety. “But I think what needed to happen, for myself and for Aziz, after Season 2 and the success of that, and everything that happened — he needed to go away a bit, just to sort of sit with himself, to figure out who he wanted to be in the world and how he really wanted to approach his art.”