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Which SNL Cast Members Couldn’t Stand Each Other?

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Some of comedy’s most beloved faces spent decades pretending to like each other on camera while the real story played out backstage in Studio 8H.

Saturday Night Live has run since 1975, cycling through dozens of cast members across nearly five decades, and that kind of turnover breeds exactly the kind of friction you’d expect from a room full of comedians competing for the same airtime. A new video investigation digs into the show’s most infamous backstage rivalries, tracing how writing-room pressure and clashing egos turned into real hostility long after the cameras stopped rolling. Some of these feuds stayed private for years; others played out in interviews, memoirs, and even fists.

• Chevy Chase and Bill Murray got into an actual fistfight backstage in 1978, broken up by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.
• Dana Carvey has expressed lasting bitterness toward Mike Myers over claims that Dr. Evil’s voice and mannerisms in Austin Powers were lifted from Carvey’s impression of Lorne Michaels.
• Eddie Murphy stayed away from SNL for decades after David Spade mocked his career on “Hollywood Minute” in 1995.

The Chase-Murray Brawl

Chevy Chase left SNL after Season 1 to chase movie stardom, and Bill Murray stepped in as his replacement — a move that apparently didn’t sit well with either man. When Chase came back to host during Season 3 in 1978, Murray confronted him backstage in John Belushi’s dressing room over what he saw as Chase’s condescending treatment of the cast. The confrontation escalated into a real fistfight just minutes before the show was set to go live, and it took both Aykroyd and Belushi physically stepping in to pull the two apart before airtime.

Chase’s reputation for friction with cast members didn’t stop with Murray. Accounts from Studio 8H describe him directing homophobic insults at Terry Sweeney, who joined the show in the 1980s as its first openly gay cast member. The pattern paints Chase as someone whose early-seasons stardom came with a habit of talking down to the people working alongside him.

Murray confronted Chase over his treatment of the cast, and the fight had to be broken up by Aykroyd and Belushi just moments before the show went on air.

Belushi’s Skepticism About Women in Comedy

John Belushi’s tension with the show’s women wasn’t a one-off incident — it was reportedly rooted in something he said outright: he was skeptical that women were inherently funny. That attitude created open friction with Jane Curtin and with female writers on staff, souring the working relationship between one of the show’s biggest stars and colleagues who were fighting for equal stage time in a room already stacked against them.

Carvey and Myers: A Grudge Over Dr. Evil

Few SNL partnerships looked closer on-screen than Dana Carvey and Mike Myers during their run together, but that closeness didn’t survive Myers’ post-SNL success. According to accounts of the fallout, Carvey grew bitter over allegations that Myers built Dr. Evil’s voice and physical mannerisms in Austin Powers directly off Carvey’s own impression of Lorne Michaels — a bit Carvey had performed on the show for years. It’s the kind of dispute that shows how quickly creative credit can curdle a friendship once real money and franchise stardom enter the picture, a dynamic that’s split up plenty of other famous pairings over the years, as detailed in stories of celebrities who started out friends and ended up enemies.

Norm Macdonald, Tracy Morgan, and the 1990s Cast

The 1990s cast had its own share of open hostility. Norm Macdonald was known for repeatedly making disparaging public remarks about Chris Kattan, questioning both his comedic talent and his sexuality. Years later, Tracy Morgan laid out his own grievances with Kattan and Cheri Oteri, saying he felt disrespected and that they didn’t cooperate with him during rehearsals — a complaint that echoes the kind of behind-the-scenes tension that’s derailed plenty of ensemble shows, not unlike the friction Nicki Swift has traced through other late-night sketches, including the SNL cold opens that depend on a cast working in sync.

Eddie Murphy’s Decades-Long Standoff

No SNL grudge lasted longer than Eddie Murphy’s. In 1995, David Spade used his “Hollywood Minute” segment to mock Murphy’s flagging box office, and Murphy never forgot it. The slight kept him away from the show he’d helped define as its breakout star for decades, a standoff that lingered long after most of the cast members involved had moved on to other projects.

Murphy’s absence became one of SNL’s longest-running real-life storylines, proof that a single joke aimed at the wrong person can outlast entire cast rotations. Whether the two ever fully squared things away away from the cameras remains one of the show’s quieter mysteries — but for years, it was Spade’s punchline, not any sketch, that kept one of SNL’s biggest alumni off the Studio 8H stage.