During Chris Farley‘s time on Saturday Night Live, creator Lorne Michaels would allegedly ban the late actor-comedian for “weeks at a time” to help him with his alcohol and drug use.
Susan Morrison, the author of Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, made a recent appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, where she opened up about Michaels changing his regulations on the sketch comedy show’s cast’s alcohol and drug use following John Belushi’s overdose death in 1982.
“When Belushi died, it really hit him hard,” she explained. “And I think he felt like, oh my God, this whole approach of just letting people do their own thing on their own time, this was the wrong approach. We’re a tribe, we’re a group, and we have to look out for each other.”
“So by the time Chris Farley comes along, you know, 10 years later or whatever, from the beginning he clearly had addiction issues,” Morrison said, adding that Michaels would reportedly “call him into his office and give him these talks about the drinking or the drugs.”
She said Bob Odenkirk, who worked as a writer on SNL from 1987 to 1991, once told her that Farley “would be excited to be called into” Michaels’ office, despite it often being difficult conversations.
“It was like the kind of thrill of being in the principal’s office, but at the same time, you’re getting in trouble,” Morrison recalled. “He couldn’t metabolize it, but Lorne had really changed his approach. He would ban Farley from the show for weeks at a time if he was too fucked up. And he sent him to a series of really tough love rehab places. And obviously, it didn’t do it for him.”
Farley, who was a castmember on SNL from 1990 to 1995, died of a drug overdose in 1997.
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