Chevy Chase’s daughter, Caley Chase, is opening up about her famous father’s near-fatal health scare in a new documentary.
“[He] has basically come back from the dead. He had heart failure,” Caley said in the new documentary I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, per Variety.
In 2021, it was reported that the Saturday Night Live alum was put into a coma for around eight days after he experienced heart failure during the COVID-19pandemic. In total, the comedian spent five weeks in the hospital due to unspecified heart issues.
“Something was wrong, and he couldn’t explain to me what was wrong,” Chevy’s wife, Jayni Chase, said in the documentary, premiering January 1 on CNN. “So, we got to the ER. His heart stops. During those years he was drinking, he got cardiomyopathy — when the heart muscles get weaker, and they can’t pump as much blood out with each beat.”
Chevy’s longtime friend, Peter Aaron, also sat in front of the cameras for the documentary, revealing that the eight-day coma was “pretty rough” on the actor’s body.
“They decided to put him into a coma for maybe eight days,” Aaron said. “That’s pretty rough on the body.”
Caley added, “The doctor had warned us: ‘We might not get him back. We don’t know how present he’ll be. Prepare yourselves for the worst.’ He woke up, all he could do was use his voice.”
Afraid her father would have been permanently altered by his illness and subsequent coma, Caley described the moment she realized her dad was the same old Chevy after a nurse came into his room to switch around some medical equipment.
Chevy Chase Getty Images
“She said, “I’m going to have to put this in here,’” she explained. “And he said, ‘That’s what she said.’”
In 2021, Chevy released a statement to the press after he finally was able to safely leave the hospital.
“I can only say how happy I am now to be back with my family,” the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation star said at the time. “I’m feeling good. I was in the hospital five weeks. A heat issue. So, for now, I’m around the house. Not going anywhere.”
Chevy’s friend, Aaron, said it took a while for the actor to “reorient himself” after the coma, adding that he had some “cognitive disability” and memory issues.
“I feel like his memory gaps come from that incident,” Aaron told the cameras.
Chevy agreed, adding, “According to the doctors, my memory would be shot from it. That’s what’s happened here.”
Per Variety, there are moments in the documentary when Chevy cannot recall what happened during his time on SNL.
“Heart failure is what it is. I’m fine now,” Chevy said in the doc, per Variety. “It’s just that it affects your memory, the doctors have told me that. So, I have to be reminded of things.”
Chevy Chase had some choice words about the Saturday Night Live origin movie, Saturday Night. Director Jason Reitman shared Chase’s reaction to the film on a recent episode of Dana Carvey and David Spade’s “Fly on the Wall” podcast. Setting the scene for the story, Carvey, 69, quipped: “Chevy loves to say the thing you’re […]
Per the outlet, Chevy also shared his candid reaction to being excluded from SNL’s star-studded 50th anniversary celebration, which featured a slew of previous cast members and hosts.
“It was kind of upsetting, actually,” he told the documentary cameras. “This is probably the first time I’m saying it. But I expected that I would’ve been on stage too with all the other actors. When Garret [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 continued, “I did bring it up once in a text to Lorne [Michaels] and then took it back. 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.”
