Chevy Chase “Kind Of Forget[s]” He Starred In ‘Community’ Over Ten Years After He Was Fired For Using A Racial Slur: “I Honestly Felt The Show Wasn’t Funny Enough For Me”

Chevy Chase had a rough exit from playing Pierce Hawthorne on Community prior to its penultimate fifth season. Now almost ten years later, the actor “kind of forget[s]” about his time on the Emmy award-winning sitcom.

“They wanted me, so I said ‘yes,'” he told Marc Maron on the Monday (Sept. 25) episode of his WTF podcast. “I honestly felt the show wasn’t funny enough for me, ultimately. I felt a little bit constrained.”

While he acknowledged that “everybody had their bits, and [he] thought they were all good,” he ultimately believed that the series “just wasn’t hard-hitting enough for [him].”

“I didn’t mind the character. I just felt that it was—I felt happier being alone,” he continued. “I just didn’t want to be surrounded by that table, every day, with those people. It was too much.”

Chase starred in 83 episodes of Community before

Chase left Community after 83 episodes in 2012 in what was deemed a “mutual agreement,” per The Hollywood Reporter. He had previously clashed with series creator Dan Harmon and used the N-word on set, which he reportedly “immediately” apologized for.

In 2018, a New Yorker profile of Donald Glover revealed that Chase would make “racial cracks” at the actor, including “people think you’re funnier because you’re Black.” Harmon elaborated on Glover and Chase’s relationship, telling the publication that “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.”

Nonetheless, Chase has had feuds with co-stars on other projects of his, including a fight that turned physical with Saturday Night Live alum Bill Murray. However, Chase did say that they “got over everything” and “the tension was short-lived” in Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story, per Far Out Magazine.

As announced last year, a Community movie is in the works at Peacock, with an anticipated 2024 release date listed on IMDb. Harmon said he doesn’t know “if it’s legal for [Chase]” to return for it, according to Variety.

“That may be out of my hands,” Harmon said at a Comic Con panel in October 2022. “There may be something I sign for with an insurance company.”

Community is streaming on Netflix.