A Chevy Chase rant has again disrupted the shooting of Community, but now the 69-year-old actor says he’s sorry for blowing up on set about the direction of his character and using the n-word.
The actor had reportedly grown frustrated with the lines writers were giving his character, Pierce Hawthorne, who is an aging bigot. Chevy Chase’s rant allegedly included his asking what would come next, if his character would use the n-word, Deadline.com reported. Only Chevy Chase didn’t say “n-word,” reports say, he said the word itself.
The Chevy Chase rant was directed toward Pierce’s treatment of the show’s black characters, Shirley(played by Yvette Nicole Brown) and Troy Barnes (played by Donald Glover). His n-word was not directed toward these actors, but Chevy still felt compelled to apologize for his behavior, Radar Online reported .
The outburst comes at a tricky time for the show. NBC executives had noted that the show would return October 19, but that date came and passed with the show still off the air. The decision was panned in a short video featuring the Community study group alluding to the decision to move the fictional in-show talk show, Troy and Abed in the Morning . When the network canceled the show Animal Practice , it chose Whitney as a replacement over Community.
This was not the first Chevy Chase rant to make headlines from the production of Community, either. Last year his tirade toward the show’s boss Dan Harmon went public when someone leaked a profanity-filled voice message left by Chevy Chase to the public, and the actor has also walked off the set in anger before.