Chevy Chase, it seems, has a reputation that precedes him—and not in a flattering light.

A forthcoming documentary, which aims to restore the comedian’s image, instead exposes the troubling behavior that transitioned Chase from a beloved comedy star to a Hollywood outcast.

The film chronicles Chase’s meteoric rise to fame, highlighting his memorable performances in classics like Caddyshack and the National Lampoon series. However, it also underscores how his on-screen brilliance has been eclipsed by his volatile conduct, inappropriate remarks, and frequent disputes with co-stars.

Set to premiere on CNN on January 1, the documentary, titled I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, presents unfiltered and, at times, confrontational interviews with Chase alongside testimonies from former colleagues and family members.

Now 82, Chase’s reputation for being challenging surfaced early in his career, but the documentary reveals that his return to TV in the mid-2000s showed little change in his demeanor despite his age and experience.

The film also includes appearances by all three of his daughters and his third wife, Jayni, whom he wed in 1982.

Chase himself sits for interviews, though they grow uncomfortable quickly. 

Early in the film, he even refers to the director, double Emmy-award winner Marina Zenovich, as a ‘b**ch.’ 

Born Cornelius Crane Chase in New York to a concert pianist mother and a magazine editor father, Chase rose to fame as part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live when the show launched in 1975. 

He became the first anchor of Weekend Update and won two Emmys in 1976 for writing and performing.

But even during his early success, colleagues say Chase was rubbing people the wrong way and a whispering campaign began against him.

SNL cast members joke that they had so little faith that Chase’s second marriage to wife Jacqueline would last, that they even wrote down dates for when the divorce would happen: it turned out to be nine months later.

In the documentary, the actor reflect on his personal life and momentarily forgets the name of his first wife Susan.

‘How could I forget?’ Chase says, then with typical bluntness, he added: ‘Because I want to’.

Despite having been the breakout cast member in SNL’s first season in 1975, Chase was not invited to perform in the 50th anniversary special earlier this year, though he was in the audience.

In a rare show of emotion, Chase admits that it ‘hurt’ to be excluded and that somebody made a ‘big mistake’ by not letting him on stage.

Speaking in the film, SNL creator Lorne Michaels reveals there was discussion about Chase appearing, but that he got a ‘caution from somebody I don’t want to name Chevy wasn’t as focused’ as he needed to be. 

The documentary acknowledges Chase’s talents and salutes his performances in Caddyshack and The Three Amigos, where he co-starred with Steve Martin and Martin Short.

But it doesn’t shy away from his challenges including his rampant cocaine addiction during the 1970s and 80s, or his famously bad attitude.

Chase left SNL in the middle of its second season, but continued to make guest appearances until 1997. 

But one of his most troubling episodes occurred when he returned to host the show in 1985, and clashed with Terry Sweeney, the first openly gay cast member on the show.

The abuse culminated in Chase suggesting a sketch about Sweeney having AIDS and being weighed, during the height of the AIDS crisis. 

Asked about the incident in the film, Chase initially laughs and says: ‘That’s the worst.’ 

But when he’s told that books about SNL claim he was angry at having to apologize to Sweeney, Chase becomes belligerent.

‘None of that’s true. I would remember that. That I was angry, that I had to apologize?’ he says. 

‘My memory is that he’s lying. He’s not telling the truth. That isn’t me. That’s not how I am. 

‘And if I am that way, my life is changed because I have to live with that for the rest of my f**king life because you got a f**king book out and read it to me.’ 

Chase’s career would eventually slide into irrelevance in the 1990s after a series of flops such as his short-lived talk show and 1992 film Memoirs of an Invisible Man, whose director John Carpenter said Chase was so insufferable he nearly quit the movie business.

It wasn’t until 2009 that Chase got another big break playing Pierce Hawthorne on Community, a character who seemed like a thinly veiled version of himself.

The role was a perfect opportunity to reintroduce Chase to a new generation while working alongside a talented, promising cast which included a young Donald Glover and Alison Brie, both of whom would go on to be stars.

But according to showrunners, it was an uphill battle with the veteran actor from day one. 

Chase’s presence on set would become so problematic that the cast and crew began to cheer when he’d leave work for the day. 

Extraordinary steps were also taken behind the scenes to keep production moving as things grew tense on set – even if it meant sidelining one of its most famous stars.

Jay Chandrasekhar, 58, who directed several episodes of the NBC sitcom, revealed scenes involving Chase were routinely shot first so he could be ushered off set as quickly as possible.

At one point, the writers also deliberately confined his character to a wheelchair so he could be filmed in fewer locations and to limit the time he spent around the rest of the cast. 

‘There was a bit of a negativity around Chevy and the rest of the cast,’ Chandrasekhar says in the film. ‘There was a desire to shoot him out every day.

‘The very first shots of the day, I’d get him to say all his lines, we would argue. I’m like, “alright Chevy, we’re done”, and he would leave. 

‘Once he would leave everyone was like: “Yay!”‘

The TV director recalled a time on set when Chase kept delivering a line with an unnecessary pause. 

‘I’m like, can we do it again without that pause? He keeps putting the pause in,’ Chandrasekhar says in the film. 

‘I’m like, “if you pull that pause out I think it’s going to be funnier.” He’s like, “oh I see, are you telling me how to do comedy?

‘I’m like, “I am and it kills me”. He’s like, “Fine. F*** it”. He did it without a pause. And he goes, “you’re right that was better”.’

Chandrasekhar said he actually ‘loved’ getting into arguments with Chase and they would always make up over the elder comedian’s stories about Richard Pryor.

But such tolerance didn’t extend to the rest of the crew.

Dan Harmon, the writer and creator of Community, grew particularly fed up with Chase. 

‘Harmon was listening to his cast. [He said] don’t worry I broke Pierce’s legs for you’, Chandrasekhar says, referring to the storyline in which Chase’s character injures himself in a trampoline accident. 

‘He’s in two casts and a wheelchair so you just stick him in one place and you shoot him out for the whole episode,’ he explains. 

But Chase would ultimately leave the show for good after a confrontation involving the use of the N-word with a black cast member. 

According to Chandrasekhar, who was directing the night of the incident, Chase ‘said something’ to co-star Yvette Nicole Brown – who is black – prompting both of them to storm off set and Brown demanding an apology from Chase.

Chandrasekhar claimed there was also a ‘history between’ the two and that Brown refused to return to set until Chase apologized. 

But Chase allegedly failed to do so upon his return, according to the director, and claimed he ‘didn’t say anything’ wrong.

According to Chandrasekhar, Chase also said: ‘You know, me and Richard Pryor, I used to call Richard Pryor the N-word, and he used to call me The Honky, and we loved each other.’

Chandrasekhar said he replied: ‘I know, man, I love that bit.’ 

‘I said, “you know, can we just have a little apology?” He goes, “for what?”

‘(I said) I dunno. What just happened? Can we just make the goddamn show?’

Within hours, details of the incident had leaked to the Hollywood Reporter, prompting Chase to become furious on the set.

According to Chandrasekhar, Chase came ‘storming onto the set, and he goes: ‘Who f***ked me over?’

‘My career is ruined! I’m ruined!’ Like, it’s a full meltdown. ‘F*** all of you!’

Somehow they managed to shoot Chase’s final scene but he never returned to set after that.

Such was the acrimony that Harmon got everyone to chant ‘f*** Chevy’ during the wrap party for that series, and Chase responded with a bitter voicemail that is played out loud during the film.

In it, Chase says: ‘I don’t get talked to like that by anybody, certainly not in front of my wife and daughter. You f****** a******, alcoholic, fat (unclear) head…you can suck my d***’.

The pressure on Chase led him to become an alcoholic – previously he had used drugs when his addictions took over – and he even began drinking on set.

In the film his family say that the alcohol contributed to his heart failure in 2021.

He was put into a coma for eight days and his middle daughter Caley Chase, said that he ‘basically came back from the dead’, although her father’s memory never fully recovered.

Chase and his family try to explain away his penchant for rudeness as a ‘coping mechanism’ for the ‘abuse’ he suffered at the hands of his mother and father.

He describes how his stepfather John Cederquist used to force him to go into the basement as punishment and beat him while he had breakfast.

Chase’s mother slapped him awake each day and in the film he calls her an ‘out of control woman’ who was ‘physically abusive’ toward him.

Goldie Hawn, who co-starred with Chase in the 1978 comedy ‘Foul Play’ says he has a ‘deep heart’ and showed her kindness when she was raising her two children alone.

But it’s a hard sell when the man himself is so obnoxious.

When Zenovich, the film’s director, says she wants to figure out Chase he replies that it’s ‘not going to be easy for you’, prompting the director to ask why.

Chase fires back: ‘You’re not bright enough. How’s that?’

The CNN Films documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, premieres on January 1 at 8pm EST.