Chevy Chase Opens Up About “Near-Fatal Heart Failure,” Claims of “Jerk”-Like Behavior: “I Am Who I Am”
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Chevy Chase has opened up about the diagnosis behind his five-week hospital stay last year and has addressed past statements about his behavior and on-set clashes on projects like Community.
In a sitdown with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Jim Axelrod, it was confirmed that the 78-year-old Saturday Night Live alum and Caddyshack star had a “near-fatal heart failure,” which saw him in the hospital for five weeks in the early months of 2021. When asked about how he feels a year after the event, Chase joked, “Oh we removed it,” referring to his heart. “Didn’t need it. It’s much better now.”
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The longtime comedian and actor who dominated ’80s cinema told Page Six back in March 2021 that he had returned to his Westchester home after over a month in a hospital for a “heart issue,” something Chase did not elaborate on further at the time. “These are my first few days home. I can only say how happy I am to now be back with my family. I’m feeling good,” he said. “I was in the hospital five weeks. A heart issue. So, for now, I’m around the house. Not going anywhere.”
Later in the interview, while speaking to Axelrod about being hit and physically abused by his stepfather while young, Chase acknowledged that he “hated bullies” and the desire to “take those people out” coupled with his childhood abuse shaped his career.
That prompted Alexrod to ask about the numerous statements and allegations made by former co-stars and fellow industry members dating back to Saturday Night Live about the star’s behavior. Noting his particularly high profile departure in 2012 from the now-ended NBC comedy Community, Axelrod asked Chase whether claims that “Chevy has been a jerk” are “unfounded cheapshots.”
“I guess you’d have to ask them,” Chase says before laughing. “I don’t give a crap!”
Chase’s departure from Community — the main focus of this portion of the CBS Sunday Morning segment — came after he increasingly clashed with creator Dan Harmon during season 4 and dropped a racial slur in a heated exchange with the then-showrunner over the direction of Chase’s character Pierce Hawthorne. Though Chase apologized for his use of the slur, it still fueled on-set tension.
In a 2018 New Yorker profile of fellow Community star Donald Glover, it was reported that the veteran comedian would try to disrupt his Black co-star’s scenes, and “make racial cracks between takes.”
“Chevy was the first to realize how immensely gifted Donald was, and the way he expressed his jealousy was to try to throw Donald off,” Harmon recalled. “I remember apologizing to Donald after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-P.C. verbiage, and Donald said, ‘I don’t even worry about it.’”
For Glover he just “saw Chevy as fighting time — a true artist has to be OK with his reign being over. I can’t help him if he’s thrashing in the water. But I know there’s a human in there somewhere — he’s almost too human.”
At the time, Chase told the magazine, “I am saddened to hear that Donald perceived me in that light.”
That same year, Chase publicly criticized Saturday Night Live in a Washington Post profile, in which he summed up the then-current show to being “the worst fucking humor in the world.” Following his statements, which weren’t Chase’s only about the show since he’d left in the 1970s, SNL cast member Pete Davidson said in an interview on The Howard Stern Show that Chase is “just a genuinely bad, racist person and I don’t like him.”
“What has he done since ’83? Nothing. He had a big career and then it stopped because everybody realized he’s a jerkoff,” Davidson continued. “He should know more than anybody. It’s disrespectful to Lorne, too, a guy who gave you a career. No matter how big you get, you can’t forget what that guy did for you.”
When asked about past public reports around his professional behavior, Chase told the Sunday Morning interviewer, “I am who I am.”
“And I like who I am. I don’t care. And it’s part of me that I don’t care,” he said. “I’ve thought about that a lot. And I don’t know what to tell you, man. I just don’t care.”
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