Chevy Chase’s Wives: All About the ‘SNL’ Icon’s Love Jayni Luke & His Exes
What To Know
- The new CNN documentary I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not explores Chevy Chase’s career and his personal life.
- The comedian has been married to his current wife, Jayni Chase, since 1982.
- Before Jayni, Chase was married twice.
CNN is giving Chevy Chase the documentary treatment with I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, charting the comedian’s rise from Saturday Night Live to Hollywood royalty. But the doc, which premieres on New Year’s Day, doesn’t just explore his career. It also touches on lesser-known aspects of Chase’s life, including his struggle with addiction, by getting insights from his loved ones.
One of them is Chase’s wife, Jayni, who has stood at the 82-year-old’s side for a good chunk of his career. If you’re curious about Jayni Chase, as well as the other loves that Chase had before her, Swooon has a full breakdown of their relationship below, as well as all of the details about the SNL alum’s first two marriages.
Who is Chevy Chase married to?
Jayni Chase (née Luke) has been married to her husband since 1982, so they’ve been together for over four decades. After growing up in Hollywood and becoming a pentathlete, according to People, the 68-year-old studied communications at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She went on to work in media, meeting Chase during her first job as an Assistant Coordinator on his film Under the Rainbow. It took two years of dating for them to walk down the aisle.
Jayni almost didn’t say yes to going out with the comedian, however. “He flirted with me and pursued me, but I didn’t take it seriously,” Jayni, who’s also a climate change activist, said during a 1990 episode of The Barbara Walters Special. “Then, one day, I made a rather flip remark to him, and I looked and saw that he was hurt by it. And I looked in those brown eyes, and I said, ‘Oh, I think there’s a nice guy there.’ And there is.”
Who was Chevy Chase’s first wife?
From 1973 to 1976, Chase was married to Suzanne Hewitt. Chase revealed in his biography that he met Hewitt at a concert that he was putting on with his band, Chameleon Church, when they were 25 and 19 years old, per Nicki Swift. When Hewitt became pregnant, she agreed to end her pregnancy if Chase married her. Eventually, “she had an affair and simply left,” he told I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not author Rena Fruchter. “That was the end of that.”
Who was Chevy Chase’s second wife?
Chase remarried the same year he got divorced. His second wife was the late actress Jacqueline Carlin, who made appearances on SNL. She filed for divorce 17 months after walking down the aisle, according to the Chicago Tribune, claiming that Chase threatened violence toward her. She died of cancer in 2021.
The year 1976 is also when Chase left SNL, telling People that he became “self-destructive” after the divorce and used alcohol and drugs to cope. “A separation is so painful. I really didn’t have a carefree bachelor life. Mostly, I moped.”
In the same 1983 interview, Chase added, “When I met Jayni, what was I, a Bowery bum? She got me right out of the doldrums I’d been in for three years… there is no smoking of pot, no drugs, no drinking. It’s a very clean life.”
Does Chevy Chase have kids?
Chase and his wife share three daughters: Cydney, Caley, and Emily. The latter said of her dad in a 2024 Chase family interview, “He has a huge heart, and everything he does is for us, his daughters, and our mom, who he has been completely infatuated with since 1980. We truly couldn’t ask for a better dad.”
“Chevy was absolutely smitten with each of our daughters, and he’s been a super loving and devoted father,” Jayni added. “We’ve had lots of extraordinary friends, and we’ve met a lot of high-profile people, but it’s our three fabulous daughters that matter most to us.”
Emily made her parents grandparents in August 2024 when she welcomed her daughter, Ivy Jay Baglieri.
