Terry Sweeney, the first openly gay “SNL” cast member, is clapping back at Chevy Chase.
“Chevy is one of those turds you flush down the toilet and but it comes back up again and again,” Sweeney, 75, exclusively told The Post.
Sweeney and Chase had an alleged incident in 1985, when Sweeney was a cast member of Season 11, and Chase, 82, returned to host the Nov. 16 episode that year.
In the new CNN documentary, “I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not” (premiering Jan. 1 at 8 p.m.)., which Chase participated in but Sweeney did not, Chase addresses the incident.
Director Marina Zenovich prompts Chase by recounting that he allegedly made an AIDS joke to Sweeney.
“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,’” she told Chase.
“SNL” mastermind Lorne Michaels, who is also interviewed in the doc, recalled onscreen that he was there that night.
“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,” said Michaels.
“You know, we would say terrible things, because that’s what would make us laugh.”
Sweeney was part of the Season 11 cast, which “SNL” insiders dubbed “the weird year.” Michaels was returning to the show after taking time away, and filled the cast with newcomers, including non-comedians Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, and Joan Cusack. After getting middling reviews, Michaels ousted most of the cast after Season 11 — including Sweeney — and only kept Jon Lovitz.
Onscreen on the doc, Chase noted, “Terry Sweeney, he was very funny, this guy. I don’t think he’s alive anymore.”
Sweeney is still alive.
Zenovich read Chase an excerpt from the book, “Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests,” by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller that detailed Chase’s alleged AIDS comment to Sweeney.
In the book, Sweeney is quoted as saying that Chase was “furious that he had to apologize to me.”
Onscreen in the doc, Chase denied the allegation.
“None of that’s true, I would remember that. That I was angry, that I had to apologize to him? Good god, Chevy, what’s wrong with you. Of course I – that’s just not true,” the “Caddyshack” actor said.
Chase continued, “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–king life.”
