He's not Chevy, he's an asshole: a history of Chevy Chase's horrific behavior

Link to the piece.

He’s Not Chevy, He’s an Asshole: A History of Chevy Chase’s Horrific Behavior

He's Not Chevy, He's an Asshole: A History of Chevy Chase's Horrific Behavior"When you become famous, you've got like a year or two where you act like a real asshole," Bill Murray told Tom Shales and James Miller when they interviewed him for Live from New York, their oral history of Saturday Night Live. "You can't help yourself. It happens to everybody. You've got like two years to pull it together — or it's permanent." He was talking, of course, about Chevy Chase, his opponent in a famous backstage fistfight. The two are friendly now, and it seems as though Murray wanted to imply that Chase had "pulled himself together" following his sudden rise to fame.

But by most accounts, Chevy Chase's assholedom was permanent.

The history of Chevy Chase being a jerk is long and varied, and from what I've heard Chevy is hard at work creating new legends of his own dickishness as the old stories become more widely known. I heard a recent story about Chevy unloading on a nervous intern who spilled a small amount of Coca-Cola in front of Chase and SNL creator Lorne Michaels. "Why don't you just piss in it?" he snarled.

But you don't even need to hunt down anecdotes of Chevy screaming at interns: between the hundreds of thousands of words that have been written about Saturday Night Live, his weirdly public ongoing spats with actors and writers on Community, and the unbelievably dickish and petty interviews he's given over the years, there's plenty of evidence that Chevy Chase is an asshole. Here's a working timeline. If you've got any Chevy Chase stories, send them my way at max@gawker.com.

Saturday Night Live Season One

Who He Pissed Off: John Belushi, Al Franken, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, and basically the whole cast and writing staff of Saturday Night Live How: According to Jeff Weingrad and Doug Hill's Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, Chevy was known as "a viciously effective put-down artist, the sort who could find the one thing somebody was sensitive about — a pimple on the nose, perhaps — and then kid about it, mercilessly." In meetings, he'd smirk at writers' suggestions and say "gee, I don't think that's very good at all." As the show, and in particular Chevy, took off, his coworkers accused him of not giving them enough credit in interviews; he was also doing too much coke and spending much of his time bragging about his fame and ordering people around the set.

Who He Pissed Off: Johnny Carson How: Carson once said Chevy "couldn't ad-lib a fart after a baked-bean dinner" after Chevy dismissed chatter that he could be the next Carson by telling New York, "I'd never be tied down for five years interviewing TV personalities." (In fairness, he never was.)

Who He Pissed Off: Lorne Michaels How: Lorne and Chevy were close friends, until Chevy, without warning, decided to leave the show at the end of his contract and do a handful of primetime specials for NBC, severing his relationship with Bernie Brillstein, the manager he shared with Lorne, and signing with William Morris in the process. "Chevy was a scumbag the way he left," one of the writers told Weingrad and Hill. "Deceitful and dishonest about the whole thing." When staff writer Tom Davis asked why he was leaving, Chevy said "Money. Lots of money."

(cont.)

(cont.)

After SNL

Who He Pissed Off: Jacqueline Carlin How: Carlin, whom Chevy married right after he left the show, filed for divorce 17 months later, citing "threats of violence." He then cited his engagement and impending marriage to Carlin as a reason for leaving Saturday Night Live — a "blame the bitch" strategy, according to one of the women on the show.

Who He Pissed Off: Jane Curtin How: When Chevy returned to host the show for the first time after his departure, he insisted on doing the "Weekend Update" segment that had been his trademark. According to some accounts, including Chevy's, this pissed Jane off; in Live from New York, Jane insists that she didn't really care, and that "Chevy was expecting [a reaction] that he wasn't getting from me."

Who He Pissed Off: Bill Murray How: According to Chevy, John Belushi had spent a lot of time poisoning the cast against him — in particular Bill Murray, who was more or less his replacement on the show. Bill apparently confronted Chevy about something (possibly the "Weekend Update" situation), the two traded barbs (Murray told Chase to go home and fuck his wife; Chase told Murray his face looked like something Neil Armstrong had landed on), and the confrontation turned physical. Chase's account of the fight in Live from New York is hilarious, both for being so self-serving and for his insistence that he — an upper-middle- class fourteenth-generation New Yorker — had "grown up on the edge of East Harlem" and "been in a lot of fistfights." "It wasn't as if I was simply some guy who had never seen the other side of the tracks," Chase, who went to Dalton and the Stockbridge school, said. "I had."

Who He Pissed Off: Terry Sweeney, Robert Downey Jr., Jon Lovitz and the cast of the 1985-1986 season How: Chase was back to host again in 1985 and seemed to piss off literally everyone. He made fun of Robert Downey Jr.'s father ("Didn't your father used to be a successful director? Whatever happened to him? Boy, he sure died, you know, he sure went to hell.") and was relentlessly hateful to Terry Sweeney, suggesting that SNL's first openly gay cast member star in a sketch where they weighed him every week to see if he had AIDS. "So then he ended up having to apologize and actually coming to my office," Sweeney says. "He was really furious that he had to apologize to me."

(As a coda to Chevy's SNL assholery, we'll note that he ran into Live from New York author James Miller a few years after the book's publication. Angry with his status in the book as a recurring villain, Chevy proceeded to prove everyone right by immediately going off on Miller. And one of the authors received a sobbing phone call from his wife Jayni.)

The Chevy Chase Show

Who He Pissed Off: The entire television-viewing public. How: Chevy returned to television in 1993 with a high-profile attempt by Fox to fill the void left by a retiring Johnny Carson. In a New York cover profile from before the show's premiere (highly recommended, if only for the parenthetical where Chase tries to blame the huge flop Nothing But Trouble on poor Dan Aykroyd) the show already feels doomed to fail — the only preview we get is a game Chevy wants to play with audience members involving putting rubber bands around their heads and "racing" by scrunching their faces — and within five weeks of its debut, it was canceled. He later told Time he wanted to do something "much darker and more improv," and blamed network constraints — and not his own clear nervousness and incompetence — for the show's failure

(cont.)

Who He Pissed Off: Will Ferrell and the cast of the 1996-1997 season How: "When he was here," Tim Meadows says in Live from New York, "it was like just watching a car accident over and over again just watching him deal with people." According to Will Ferrell, Chase was "a little snobbish" and prone to screaming at people; at that show's first meeting he told a female writer "maybe you could give me a handjob later," reportedly mortifying Lorne. "I don't know if he was on something or what," Ferrell said. "If he took too many back pills that day or something."

Who He Pissed Off: Comedian Rob Huebel How: Huebel, who describes himself as "the biggest Chevy Chase fan in the world," approached Chevy backstage at UCB Theater to introduce himself, only to have Chevy slap him across the face "offensively hard." It was done as a joke ("in good humor," Chase told New York magazine), but it clearly left an impression on Huebel and an onlooking Jason Mantzoukas. The Roast

Who He Pissed Off: Actually, no one. How: The 2002 Friars Club Roast of Chevy Chase, one of those interminable things broadcast on Comedy Central, may be the only thing Chevy's been involved with professionally where he didn't end up pissing anyone off. And yet we have to mention it here, if only because it's maybe the best, and saddest evidence of how few friends Chevy has left. Almost no one from the original Saturday Night Live showed up (Paul Shaffer, a member of the band, MCed), and the comedians who did show weren't exactly close friends of Chase, and were unbelievably cruel. (Not to mention unfunny.) I caught this on TV at the time without really having a sense of how widely-hated Chevy was; by the end, there was literally no question that nobody liked him. Community

Who He Pissed Off: Dan Harmon How: Show creator Harmon, himself reputedly a sensitive and vindictive prick, has been embroiled in a weirdly public feud with Chase almost since the start of the show, and it's not hard to see the uncomfortable parallels between Chevy himself and his character Pierce Hawthorne — an old, out-of-touch, self-aggrandizing bigot who alienates all of the people he works with. Their sniping turned into a full-on confrontation over the last week when Harmon, smarting from an on-set spat over a late script, gave a very public "fuck you" to Chase at a party in front of his wife and daughter and leaked a hilariously profane voicemail that Chevy had left for him. To be fair, Harmon's apologized, in a meandering Tumblr post: "I'm a selfish baby and a rude asshole and not a person to trust with your feelings." Meanwhile, a sort of poignant interview with the Huffington Post, Chase hints that he might leave the show soon, insisting that he wants a "much freer kind of performance thing" — which is more or less what he said about The Chevy Chase Show 20 years ago.

Who He Pissed Off: Dino Stamatopoulos and much of the Community cast. How: Chevy "has a reputation for being a dick," Dino Stamatopoulos, who plays the character Star Burns, told Marc Maron on his podcast last year. "That reputation is earned." (Stamatopoulos nevertheless insists that he personally likes Chevy, and that all the actor needs "is a little respect," which he apparently doesn't get from the younger cast.)

Who He Pissed Off: Yvette Brown, Alison Brie, Megan Ganz and probably most of the show's female staff How: No one has come out and said specifically that Chase is a problem, but there are hints: asked by the Daily Beast's Jace Lacob about an uncomfortable rape joke Chevy made at a panel appearance by the cast, castmembers Yvette Brown and Alison Brie and writer Megan Ganz were diplomatic but not particularly warm. "His bits are from a different time," Ganz says. "A lot of crass comedy is accepted," Brie offers. "Some people don't know how to word it the right way." Brown agrees that some people don't "know their room... Maybe he was from a time when women weren't empowered enough to speak up. I'm glad that we're in a time now where if you are offended or upset by something someone says, you feel empowered to say, 'That's not right.'" (Chase doesn't seem to be helping things by telling the Huffington Post that the only two relatable characters are "the two white girls — the two pretty, young girls, Alison [Brie] and Gillian [Jacobs]" who are "probably more like people that we can all understand.")

My GAWD, no wonder he doesn't get any acting gigs.

I always heard the reason he got in the fist fight with Bill Muarry when he went back the second year to guest host SNL was that he had said something sexually crude and insulting about Jane Curtin in front of everyone to humiliate her, and that Murray had a crush on Jane (who was and is still married), and chivalrously stood up for her.

[quote]"The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him in the ass."

I'm sorry, WHO?

Didn't Chase write an autobiography about 10 or 15 years ago acknowledging that he was a prick during and immediately after his time at SNL? The reasons he gave were drug abuse, which he claimed to have given up and growing up with a cold, remote and abusive father (can't remember if it was emotional only or if he was physically abused, too.) He also went on to say he'd gone to therapy and had gotten all better...

We were born to rub him first.

He was sexy, but he was too busy fucking Jason Lively to pay me any attention.

I knew Chevy when he was young (I worked with his father Ned in book publishing at Putnam.) Chevy was always a horrible kid. Seriously. Always. Horribly.

He's about as funny as Adam Sandler, and my left nut.

I heard Ned was a nice guy though. A publishing friend of mine used to play tennis with him.

[quote] My GAWD, no wonder he doesn't get any acting gigs.

Umm, except that he has had a gig on a major network TV show for the past 3 years, meaning he DOES get gigs.

Everyone knows who and what Chevy Chase is. Don't go expecting my sympathy if you hire him and it turns out that the 800 stories floating around about him for the past 40 years happen to be true.

If you hire a prick, deal with it but don't go public with it. Harmon looks like a fool. You hired Chevy Chase and he turns out to be difficult, so you say "Fuck you" to his face in front of his family? Nice. You're a bigger asshole than Chevy Chase.

But he was very sexy in Foul Play with Goldie Hawn. At least give him that.

Re:the Comedy Central Roast mentioned in the gawker piece. , "and the comedians who did show weren't exactly close friends of Chase, and were unbelievably cruel. (Not to mention unfunny"

That is not particular to Chase. Comedy Central had a stable of comedians it used for those stupid roasts. They all performed whether they knew the roastee or not and they were all cruel and unfunny. The horrifically unfunny Lisa Lampanelli was one and the overdosed Greg Girardo was another.

Chevy Chase is his generation's Milton Berle. They were both men who had a surprisingly long conedy career considering nobody could stand either one of them.

I wouldn't piss up his ass if his guts were on fire.

Why do comedians consent to roasts in the first place? I can understand consenting to it if you're Pam Anderson and you can't get work: but why would someone like Joan River and Chevy Chase (both of whom do get work whether people are willing to admit it or not here) consent to have it done?

Check out this old thread, esp. starting at page 5.

R17, don't embarrass yourself by playing the clueless twerp hipster and citing Berle and what you think people thought of him. There is no comparison.

Also, you seem to have spent a lot of time watching all those roasts and not once finding any of the bits funny, since you say, "they were all cruel and unfunny."

Are you a twat, by chance? I mean, of course you are, but are you sporting the meat of your meaning?

I laugh every time I see his (presumably) long-suffering wife's name: Jayni. Could he be married to anyone *but* a Jayni?

This is nothing new. Why do you think he only lasted one year at Saturday Night Live?

Joan Rivers said she did the roast because it was a lot of money. Of course, she loved the exposure too.

I don't understand why he keeps getting work.

What R15 said. Did Harmon actually think Chevy Chase was suddenly going to change overnight after 40 years of being a legendary asshole? Chase's asshole behavior is common knowledge in the Industry. The stories are legion of how awful he is to everyone; if you hire him you should know exactly what to expect. Harmon really does look like an idiot.

Why would anyone hire him with such a bad reputation? It's not like he's the reason why people tune into Community.

I was lucky to get off lightly when he noticed my fly was open. All he did was point, chuckle, and walk away.

'Medium talent'.

You can see his penis in the film "The Groove Tube".

Is that his dick and balls with the googly eyes glued on?

This is an article from 2004 about the roast and how cruel it was, but it also makes Chase out to be the asshole he is.

community isn't even funny this season, lost it's spark, and chevy's attitude is old news. Why are people are surprised?

he killed my Aunt Edna...

And a dog...

In a fight between Chevy and Bill Murray, I would bet all my money on Murray. Still would.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

So he's a sociopath, right?

Sociopath... Psychopath... I keep getting them confused!

They mean the same thing, R38, but 'sociopath' is increasingly the more common term.

I have never heard one nice thing about him.

I don't understand why the early cast and crew of SNL was flabbergasted that Chase left the show. From the first airing he was being hailed as a "young Johnny Carson." The only reason for this was because he resembled Johnny Carson in his youth. You have to admit, he was the most attractive male cast member and had screen charisma. So when he was offered large amounts of money to do other things, of course he was going to take the money and run. If any of the other cast or writers had been offered anything similar, they would have done the same thing. So I don't consider that to be assholish behavior. He didn't go looking for all those contracts and all that money -- they came to him.

Over the years he's exhibited bad behavior just about everywhere. I agree with the poster who said that there have been stories of Chase's bad behavior for 40 years. If you hire him, you don't get to complain about him. Nobody is deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to Chevy Chase. You know what you're going to get when you sign him up. Why anyone signs him up s a mystery. There doesn't seem to be a huge audience demanding Chevy Chase in their tv shows.

The "roasts" are just a bunch of Comedy Central losers who write insults for a living and sporadically work on these shows which don't have a large viewership. Chase's roast was no more or less awful than anyone else's.

Let me just put in a good word here for Dan Akroyd. He's a genuinely nice guy who did a solid for an in-law of mine, out of the blue, when he had absolutely no reason to do it except that he's a nice guy. Yay, Dan. Boo, Chevy.

He pissed everyone off during his brief guest stint at The Sally Field Programme a few years back.

They were testing waters to maybe have him recur here and there. By day 3, both Rachel Griffiths and Calista were enraged. They ended up filming all his stuff (for two episodes) that week and got him the hell out of there.

He's the dictionary definition of entitled asshole.

Those roasts are as bad or worse than those canned, horrible things from the 70's, the "Dean Martin Roasts" crap.

not supirsed my ex boyfriend hung out with him and thought he was the greatest but my ex was kind of an abusive asshole.

he's fat now, so...

A new incident to add to the list, OP:

NYP: Author: Chevy Chase once grabbed me by the crotch

Chevy Chase might not like “Lacks Self-Control: True Stories I Waited Until My Parents Died To Tell” by Roy Sekoff, the founding editor of the Huffington Post.

One chapter, titled “The Time Chevy Chase Grabbed My Balls,” describes a boozy wake in Hollywood in 1994 for comedy writer Michael O’Donoghue.

Sekoff writes that Chase got up to leave as he was speaking.

“He paused and offered me his hand. But as I went in for the handshake, he abruptly reached down and grabbed me by the crotch, his sizable mitt encasing the full three-piece set,” Sekoff recalls...

He's a posterboy for how not to behave in an age of MeToo.

How did Bev D’Angelo put up with it all those years?

He never shows any sort of a bulge.

Five or six years ago in a Broadway theatre I saw the bartenders turn him off at intermission. He was either already shitfaced or had a bad reputation such that they wouldn't serve him. People said he was trying to cadge drinks for conversation. It was around the time this thread started.

I was shocked.

I dislike him. He was funny in those few movies way back - Seems Like Old Times, Fletch, Foul Play

Back in the day Chevy (the lips, the tan, the height) could’ve grabbed my unit all he wanted.

Has anyone seen that new netflix movie where Joel McHale plays him?

He really aged horrifically.

R48 I've wondered that a lot.

He grabs guys by the crotch? Closet case, or just weird?

2012?

He was involved in a road rage incident on or near the Tappan Zee bridge maybe a decade ago. It sounded like he was an asshole.

Seriously, r57. I’m pretty sure some of these posters are dead now.

DL keeping it fresh with the latest news from Gawker!

Assuming r53 is still alive and monitoring his every DL post, YES, I did see [italic]A Futile and Stupid Gesture.[/italic]

It's great. But Joel McHale's role as Chevy Chase is very small and doesn't factor into the film much at all. It's about Doug Kenney as played by Will Forte.