Chevy Chase Responds to Being Called a 'Jerk': 'I Am Who I Am'

Chevy Chase has heard it for years, if not decades, that he's difficult to work with. His response? "I don't give a crap."

The 78-year-old legendary comedian and actor let his feelings be known during an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, after correspondent Jim Axelrod asked him if reading those things about him are "unfounded cheap shots."

"I guess you'd have to ask them," Chase said. "I don't give a crap. 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. I've thought about that a lot. I don't know what to tell you, man. I just don't care."

That he's not more introspective is an observation made by Axelrod in the interview and acknowledged by Chase.

"Look, I'm trying to be honest and I know that doesn't help me," Chase said. "And I'm sort of hurt by the fact that I can't go any further with this." When asked if that meant not being able to go deeper Chase replied, "Yeah."

Chase's response comes just over three years after Pete Davidson put him on blast back in September 2018 during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show.  

"He’s a f***ing d**che bag. F*** Chevy Chase. I hate that dude,” Davidson said of the original SNL star. "He’s a genuinely bad, racist person and I don’t like him… He’s a putz.”

Davidson tore into Chase after the famous SNL alum told the Washington Post, “I’m amazed that Lorne has gone so low. I had to watch a little of it, and I just couldn’t f**king believe it.” 

Davidson had also questioned Chase's career and relevance, telling Stern, "What has he done since ’83? Nothing. He had a really big career and then it stopped because everybody realized he’s a jerk off.” 

Chase, who left SNL in the middle of season 2 in 1976, also had some dust ups while on the NBC sitcom, Community. Chase and the show's creator, Dan Harmon, had constant friction during Chase's four seasons over the direction of his character. There was also a profile on  Chase's fellow co-star, Donald Glover, in The New Yorker, which reported in 2018 that Chase "often tried to disrupt his scenes and made 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 told The New Yorker. "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.’"

In response to Glover's remarks, Chase told the magazine, "I am saddened to hear that Donald perceived me in that light." 

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