Joel McHale is shooting down Chevy Chase’s recent digs about their former comedy series Community.
“He stopped hurting my feelings in 2009,” McHale, 51, who has starred on NBC and Yahoo! Screen series for six seasons from 2009 to 2015, jokes for PEOPLE.
Chase, 80, appeared on Marc Maron WTF podcast in September and aired his grievances about the show, which he left during Season 4 after allegedly making racist comments on set.
“I honestly felt that the show wasn’t funny enough for me, ultimately. I felt a little inhibited,” Chase told Maron during the interview. “Everybody had their parts and I thought they were all good. It just wasn’t hard enough for me.”
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Chase starred as Pierce Hawthorne, a millionaire who returns to college with younger colleagues played by Donald Glover, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown and McHale.
Joel McHale and Chevy Chase in the first season of ‘Community’.
Mitchell Haaseth/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank
“I didn’t mind the character,” Chase continued of his time on the show. “I just felt that it was… I felt happier being alone. I just didn’t want to be surrounded by that table, every day, with those people. It was too much.”
Asked about those comments, McHale tells PEOPLE, “I thought, ‘Hey, nobody was holding you there.’ I mean, we weren’t doomed to that show. It was like, ‘Okay, you could have left if you really wanted to.’ But yeah, you know Chevy. It’s Chevy being Chevy.”
“I wrote about it in my book, but I said, ‘Hey, the feeling is mutual, mate,'” McHale continues.
Indeed, in his memoirs from 2016 Thanks for the Money: How to Use Your Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHaleMcHale recalled the tension between the two and the often unpleasant things Chase allegedly said on set, including racist slurs and jokes about sexual assault.
McHale has also spoken several times about an alleged altercation with Chase on set, during which he accidentally dislocated Chase’s shoulder.
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However, McHale played Chase in the 2018 film A futile and stupid gesturebiographical film about National lantern founder Doug Kenney, who was Chase’s friend.
AND Community spinoff film is in the works, but McHale recently revealed on Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s talk in front of the camera that Chase wouldn’t be a part of it. (After all, his character was killed off when Chase left the series.)
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” McHale replied to Ripa when she asked if he did National lantern‘with Rest star would join Glover, Brie and other returning stars. “There were no problems while we were doing the show,” he said sarcastically.
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McHale, who hosts the new E! reality competition House of villainshe also voices Johnny Cage in the upcoming film Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Matchavailable on DVD, Blu-ray and digital October 17th.
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Source: HIS Education