Chevy Chase says his mother physically abused him in new documentary

Movieweb reports that the documentary I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not sees Chevy Chase reveal he grew up in an abusive household and say his mother "was physically abusive to me." The film is available to stream on CNN. In the documentary Chase and others describe his mother as "a bag of cats, certainly on the schizoid spectrum," and his stepfather as "humorless." A stepbrother says, "My father had a flash anger, and he could lash out with a single blow…He did not take to anything that he perceived as insolence.

Chevy was insolent." Chase says, "This was an out-of-control woman who I look back on, and I say I feel sorry for her. She had her own issues — bad ones. But, she was physically abusive to me." His wife Jayni Luke recalls him telling her, "Well, my mother would wake me up slapping me.

From the time he was a little guy, wham!" Friends mention being "locked up in the closet," and Chase's brother says, "There was a cellar, and he was sent down there because of really messing up in school." His daughter Emily says his comedic style was a "coping mechanism" shaped by that childhood trauma.

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Culture, Chevy Chase, Marina Zenovich, Jayni Luke, Emily Chase, Woodstock New York