Chevy Chase and Donald Glover

Donald Glover Jokes ‘Community’ Star Chevy Chase Used Racial Slur

At the Writers Guild Awards, Donald Glover delivered a scathing takedown of his former Community co-star Chevy Chase. Glover was at the ceremony to present an honorary award to Atlanta executive producer Paul Simms, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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Glover remembered how the award Simms is receiving pays homage to former Saturday Night Live scribe Herb Sargent. He created the classic tv segment “Weekend Update” with Chevy Chase as its anchor. “Chevy Chase once called Herb one of the funniest writers working in television,” Glover joked at the WGA Awards. “Chevy Chase once called me. You know what? This is about Paul.”

Later, when Glover reflected on learning about Simms after collaborating with Girls, he provided more vivid details concerning what transpired between himself and Chase. “I was on the set of Girls after filming a sex scene for like eight hours, which they cut down to two minutes. I’ve never seen any of the rest of that footage,” Glover explained.

“I asked Lena [Dunham], ‘Hey, what made you decide to work with Paul [Simms, an executive producer on the HBO hit]?’ And she goes ‘Honestly, this N— lets me do whatever I want.’ And I remember thinking two things. One, Lena is using the N-word extremely liberally. Who does she think she is, Chevy Chase? And two, that’s the kind of producer I want.”

Glover’s joke about Dunham appeared to be lighthearted. However, his comment on Chase was in keeping with the stories circulating of Chase’s conduct.

Chevy Chase has been called out for using slurs on set in the past

In 2012, an informant reported to The Hollywood Reporter that Chase had quickly apologized for using the N-word on set while voicing his grievances concerning his character. Reportedly, he used this slur when discussing a scene with Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown; however, according to the source who spoke with THR, it was not meant in any personal way towards them.

During a 2018 interview with the New Yorker, it was reported that Chase would attempt to interrupt Glover’s scenes and interject racial comments 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,” Community creator Dan Harmon told the outlet at the time.

“I remember apologizing to Donald after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-PC verbiage,” Harmon added. “Donald said, ‘I don’t even worry about it.’ ”

Glover also weighed in during the interview. “I just saw Chevy as fighting time — a true artist has to be OK with his reign being over. I can’t help him if he’s thrashing in the water. But I know there’s a human in there somewhere — he’s almost too human.”