“SNL” alum Terry Sweeney calls out 'so rotten' Chevy Chase as CNN doc revisits AIDS controversy
- - “SNL” alum Terry Sweeney calls out 'so rotten' Chevy Chase as CNN doc revisits AIDS controversy
Lauren HuffJanuary 1, 2026 at 2:05 AM
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NBC/Jamie McCarthy/NBC via Getty; Noam Galai/Getty
Terry Sweeney; Chevy Chase
Terry Sweeney is not mincing words about the "so rotten" Chevy Chase.
In CNN Films' upcoming documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, Sweeney and Chase's decades-long feud is revisited, among other controversies. In it, director Marina Zenovich point-blank brings up to Chase the claims that he had allegedly suggested that Sweeney — who was the first out gay cast member during Saturday Night Live's 1985-86 season — appear in a sketch on the show mocking the AIDS epidemic.
“You said something to Sweeney like, ‘Oh, you’re the gay guy. Why don’t we ask if you have AIDS. And every week, we weigh you,'" Zenovich tells Chase.
She also reads to him from Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller’s SNL oral history, Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests. In it, Sweeney claims Chase later came to his dressing room to apologize for the AIDS joke, but was “furious that he had to apologize to me.”
Chevy Chase in 'I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not'
In response, Chase says in the doc, “My memory is that [Sweeney] is lying, is my memory. He’s not telling the truth. That isn’t me. That’s not who I am. And if I am that way, my life has changed, because I have to live with that now for the rest of my f---ing life."
Chase adds in the documentary, "Terry Sweeney, he was very funny, this guy. I don’t think he’s alive anymore."
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter via instant message, Sweeney reportedly responded, “Don’t you think he is saying this and making himself look more like the ass he is!!!”
Sweeney added of Chase's comments in the doc, “It all reflects rightly horribly on him!”
In the film, SNL creator Lorne Michaels also speaks to the alleged incident, saying, “I think Chevy was just being Chevy. He would say things that were funny, and he would assume you were comedy people, and he could speak that way. You know, we would say terrible things, because that’s what would make us laugh.”
According to THR, when asked about a different part of the film which claims that Chase was abused by his parents as a child and this is a possible explanation for his reported demeanor over the years, Sweeney responded: "Boohoo … poor screwed up kid … so THAT’s why he’s so rotten!!!!!!!”
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Chase’s representative for further comment.
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I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not premieres on Jan. 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.
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