Chevy Chase Felt ‘Hurt’ for Not Being in the SNL50 Special

Chevy Chase’s SNL50 FOMO hasn’t gone away yet. While Chase was in attendance at the SNL 50: The Anniversary Special premiere, he didn’t have a moment in the actual special, and Chase is still hurt by that. He explains in his upcoming CNN Films documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, via People that he “expected” to be on stage with the other SNL OGs like Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris. “Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” he shared. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I expected that I would’ve been on the stage too with all the other actors. When Garrett [Morris] and Laraine [Newman] went on the stage there, I was curious as to why I didn’t. No one asked me to. Why was I left aside?” He specifically brought up the Weekend Update segment, wondering why he wasn’t invited on when he was the first anchor. He said, “Why was Bill Murray there and why was I not? I don’t have an answer for that.”

Chase did mention it to Lorne Michaels, but it didn’t go very far, mainly on Chase’s part. “I did bring it up once in a text to Lorne and then took it back,” Chase further explained. “I said, ‘Okay, I take it back, silly.’ But it’s not that silly. Somebody’s made a bad mistake there. I don’t know who it was, but somebody made a mistake. They should’ve had me on that stage. It hurt.” Chase’s wife, Jayni, says there were two bits with the comedian that the SNL50 team was going “back and forth” on, including, but when the show came on, both those bits weren’t in the final cut. 

As for what Michaels has to say, the SNL creator claims there were a few different versions of the Weekend Update segment, but he did receive a warning. He said, “There was also a caution from somebody that I don’t want to name that Chevy, you know, wasn’t as focused.”