Chevy Chase On ‘Community’ N-Word Controversy: “I’m Not Racist”
Chevy Chase is again wading into the resurfaced controversy surrounding his alleged use of the N-word on the set of .
The newly-released documentary I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, recounts Chase’s firing from the NBC sitcom after he allegedly used a racial slur.
“It was too great a misunderstanding of what I was saying and not saying,” Chase said in an interview published yesterday by the New York Times. “I thought that there was at least one person — and another who, for some ungodly reason, didn’t get me, didn’t know who I was, or didn’t realize for one second I’m not racist. They were too young to be aware of my work. Instead, there was some sort of visceral reaction from them.”
In the doc, Community director Jay Chandrasekhar says that Chase had an on-set “meltdown” following the incident in which the former SNL cast member apparently used the N-word in a conversation with co-star Yvette Nicole Brown, who is Black.
While he didn’t actually hear the conversation between the two actors, Chandrasekhar says in the doc that he “was there, directing, the night that Chevy Chase got fired from Community.” Chandrasekhar says the event stemmed from a scripted “blackface” hand puppet bit involving Chase’s Community character Pierce Hawthorne.
Chase, as detailed in a Deadline report at the time, was unhappy with his character’s racist development, and said something along the lines that soon the writers would be having him say the N-word. Only he didn’t say “N-word.”
Brown took to social media yesterday and emphasized that no one can speak for her or for her personal experiences on the show.
“There are things I’ve never spoken of publicly and perhaps never will. Anyone currently speaking FOR or ABOUT me with perceived authority is speaking without EVER speaking to me about the things they claim to know about,” she wrote in a statement on Threads. “They actually don’t really know me — at all.”
She continued, “They also have no knowledge of my relationship with anyone l’ve worked with & cannot credibly speak on any current or previous issues. I hate that all this had to be said. In East Cleveland speak: Keep my name out your mouth.”
Chase, reflecting on his time on Community and departure from the show, said, “It wasn’t a bad experience. I just didn’t think it was that good, the show.”
On the topic of explaining himself and his past actions, Chase said, “I don’t have any need to do that. The whole issue of them thinking I’m an [expletive], it’s all junk. I don’t care much about it. I have a great, great life, a wonderful family.”
Asked if his actions hurt his career, the comedian responded, “I don’t think I sabotaged my career. I think we go up and down and up and down, up and down. You make mistakes. You make mistakes. You don’t make so many mistakes. You learn more, and then you get to where I am now, where I don’t think any of that matters anymore. All that matters is how I am with people throughout the rest of my life.”
Glenn Garner contributed to this report.
