The NBC cult-favorite Community may have narrowly avoided being axed when it returned from a brief hiatus to strong ratings last month. But a feud between showrunner Dan Harmon and star Chevy Chase threatens to undo a lot of that good will.

Creator Harmon reportedly recently let a live audience know just what he thought about Chase; then, whole story began to leak online. Nellie Adreeva at Deadline investigated:

The chronology of the events, corroborated to me by multiple sources, involves Chase walking off the set of the show on the last day of shooting last month without filming one of his scenes, which reportedly was to close out the season finale. Then at the wrap party, Harmon got up and gave a “Fuck you, Chevy” speech in front of Chase and his wife and daughter, and encouraged the crew to join him in saying “fuck you” to the actor. Chase left immediately and later left Harmon a profane-laden voice message, a portion of which found its way to the Web after Harmon played it in front of other people. Click here for audio.

Adreeva added that “people close to the matter… weren’t surprised by the feud.”

Chase has a reputation for being difficult to work with, thanks to high profile feuds with those including Bill Murray and Howard Stern. (And one has only to watch the blooper reel included with the Community DVDs to see that Chase’s castmates all have a great time with each other, but are not amused by his flubbed lines and short attention span.)

Reports of difficulty working with Harmon are less common, but seem to exist- the Deadline article says he can be described as “passionate” or “volatile,” just like Chase.

What do you think? If Chase leaves the show, could that endager Community‘s chances of being renewed?

[via Culture Vulture]

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