Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) has spoken publicly about racist remarks allegedly made by actor Chevy Chase on the set of NBC series Community.
Glover, who played Troy Barnes on the show, has spoken about Chase in a new profile published by The New Yorker, which claims Chase would “often” try to disrupt Glover’s scenes with racial jokes.
“People think you’re funner because you’re black,” Chase reportedly said during a shoot.
“I just saw Chevy as fighting time — a true artist has to be O.K. with his reign being over,” Glover said.
“I can’t help him if he’s thrashing in the water. But I know there’s a human in there somewhere — he’s almost too human.”
Meanwhile, Community creator Dan Harmon said, “Chevy was the first to realise how immensely gifted Donald was, and the way he expressed his jealousy was to try to throw Donald off.
“I remember apologising to Donald after a particularly rough night of Chevy’s non-P.C. verbiage, and Donald said, ‘I don’t even worry about it.’”
Chase has responded to the accusations by telling The New Yorker, “I am saddened to hear that Donald perceived me in that light.”
Chase also issued an apology in 2012 after he dropped the n-word during an argument with Harmon.
In the New Yorker profile, Glover said his FX series Atlanta seeks to help white people experience racism.
“I want them to really experience racism, to really feel what it’s like to be black in America,” he said.
“People come to ‘Atlanta’ for the strip clubs and the music and the cool talking, but the eat-your-vegetables part is that the characters aren’t smoking weed all the time because it’s cool but because they have P.T.S.D. — every black person does.
“It’s scary to be at the bottom, yelling up out of the hole, and all they shout down is, ‘Keep digging! We’ll reach God soon!”
Speaking about his Childish Gambino project — which he’s revealed will eventually come to an end — Glover said his conception of the music industry has changed dramatically throughout the years.
“Before my first album came out, I wanted people to like me, and to realize that I had good intentions,” he said. “Then I realized that no one has good intentions—we all just have incentives.”
You can read the profile in full at The New Yorker.
Atlanta Season Two premieres this Friday, 2nd March.
