More details have emerged about Chevy Chase‘s “near-fatal heart failure,” which led him to be hospitalized for five weeks in 2021. Now, Chase, 82, is opening up about the memory problems he’s since faced.
In the upcoming documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, which premieres New Year’s Day on CNN, Chase’s daughter, Caley Chase, recalled the scary experience. “[He] has basically come back from the dead,” she said. “He had heart failure.”
Chase’s wife, Jayni Chase, also recalled that time in their family’s life. “He couldn’t explain to me what was wrong. So, we go to the ER. His heart stops,” she remembered. “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.”
Chase was then put into a coma for eight days, according to his friend Peter Aaron.
“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,” Caley added. “He woke up, all he could do was use his voice.”
Following the coma, Chase took a long time to “reorient himself,” Aaron described. To help Chase with cognitive improvement, they played chess and cards.
But ever since then, he’s had trouble remembering things. “I feel like his memory gaps come from that incident,” Aaron said.
Chase added, “According to the doctors, my memory would be shot from it. That’s what’s happened here.” He also said he doesn’t remember controversial moments from his past, when asked about on-set clashes, such as those while filming Community.
“I’m fine now,” Chase said. “It’s just that it affects your memory, the doctors have told me that. So, I have to be reminded of things.”
Among many things, Chase is known for being a part of SNL‘s season one cast. But when the sketch comedy series celebrated its 50th anniversary in February, and viewers wondered why Chase was present but didn’t go on stage with his former cast members.
Chase finally addressed how “upsetting” that was. “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,” he said. “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.”
“I did bring it up once in a text to Lorne [Michaels] and then took it back. I said, ‘OK, 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,” he continued. “They should’ve had me on that stage. It hurt.”
The Hollywood Reporter was present for SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert, which aired two nights before the anniversary special and reported that the audience was muted with few cheers when host Jimmy Fallon greeted the original cast member.
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