What to Know
When former Saturday Night Live cast members reunited to commemorate the sketch comedy show’s 50th anniversary, Chevy Chase was notably missing. It’s clear that this was not his choice, and he recently revealed that he felt “hurt” after being excluded from “SNL50: The Anniversary Special.” The anniversary special aired in February 2025, and Chevy, 82, recently opened up about how he felt about it.
Chevy was the original anchor for the “Weekend Update” segment.
He was one of the original cast members when the show started in 1975, but he left in 1976. However, he still returned to host the show eight times between 1978 and 1997. It’s also been rumored that SNL producer Lorne Michaels banned Chevy from hosting SNL. In 2022, Screen Rant reported that Chevy had been banned for being “abusive to the cast members.”
But when Chevy wasn’t included in this year’s anniversary special, it upset him. The topic came up during CNN Films’ upcoming documentary, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, which premieres on January 1, 2026 on CNN.
He had been expecting an invite.
Based on what he said in the documentary, it’s clear that Chevy thought he would be invited back for SNL’s 50th anniversary. “Well, it was kind of upsetting actually,” Chevy said, per Entertainment Weekly. “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 also said he didn’t know why he wasn’t included. “When Garrett [Morris] and Laraine [Newman] went on the stage there, I was curious as to why I didn’t,” he revealed. “No one asked me to. Why was I left aside?”
He also referred the “Weekend Update” segment and said, “Why was Bill Murray there and why was I not? I don’t have an answer for that.”
He also confronted Lorne about it.
Because being left out bothered him, he decided to reach out to the show’s creator. At the same time, he decided to take it back and play it off like he didn’t really care. But he did care, and he thinks his exclusion from the special was actually a “mistake.”
“I did bring it up once in a text to Lorne and then took it back,” he explained. “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.”
