Never has the expression “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not” felt more like a comfort.

The iconic comedian, now 82 years old, recently made the questionable choice to participate in a documentary that is currently attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.

According to the film, Chase’s reputation for being difficult seems to be well-founded.

“You’re not bright,”

That’s the blunt remark Chase makes at the start of the documentary, aimed at the film’s director, Emmy-winning Marina Zenovich, after she simply inquires why he believes she’ll never truly understand him.

Later, on camera, he calls her ‘you b**ch’.

This doc lands at an interesting time in Hollywood and the culture, both still reeling from the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner by, allegedly, their 32-year-old troubled, drug-addicted son Nick.

If you want a sense of how monsters get made, of the corrosive power of fame, the destruction caused by egos run amok in an industry that creates them, caters to them, then cowers and flees from them — well, look no further.

Never has the phrase, ‘I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not’, been more of a relief. The legendary comic, now 82, made the dubious decision to sit for this titular documentary now making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Chase, in his prime, was a supernova — a comic actor as relevant as Jim Carrey or Ricky Gervais.

He was a founding cast member of Saturday Night Live and invented ‘Weekend Update’, beginning every fake newscast with, ‘I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not’.

After that first year, he left the show to star in movies, churning out hit after hit: Foul Play with Goldie Hawn (who, it’s hinted, he dated), Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Three Amigos, and Spies Like Us.

But the roles soon dried up, and the line on Chase was always that his own terrible behavior was the reason.

And what does Chase have to say to this?

‘I don’t know what to say about the people who don’t like me, but f*** ’em,’ he says in the doc. ‘What can you say about something like that?’

A lot, it turns out.

Zenovich asks Chase about one of his most deplorable alleged bullying incidents: Upon returning to host SNL in 1985, he told Terry Sweeney, the first openly gay male cast member, to ‘lick my balls’, and pitched a recurring sketch in which Sweeney would play an AIDS patient who the show would put on a scale each week to see how much weight he lost.

Does Chase express remorse? No.

Instead, he explodes in fury and denies it all — despite the very same incident being printed in the compelling 2002 oral history ‘Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live’, in which Sweeney spoke about the incidents and called Chase a ‘monster’.

Chase now spits his response.

‘My memory is that he is lying, is my memory,’ he says. ‘He’s not telling the truth. That isn’t me. That’s not who I am. And if I am that way, my life has changed, because I have to live with that now for the rest of my f***ing life.’

In other words: Poor him.

Chase, in his prime, was a supernova. He was a founding cast member of Saturday Night Live and invented ‘Weekend Update’, beginning every fake newscast with, ‘I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not’.

But the roles soon dried up, and the line on Chase was always that his own terrible behavior was the reason. (Chase, pictured center with SNL writers, won two Emmys in 1976)

Chase’s wife of 43 years, Jayni, and their three grown daughters participate in the doc, and here is where we see a bit of adjacency with the Reiner tragedy.

All three daughters, along with Jayni, depict a home in which everything revolved around Chase: His career, his alcohol and drug abuse, his severe bouts of depression.

The family moves to Bedford, New York after Chase’s career goes south. When he’s finally offered a late-night talk show in LA, daughter Cayley — a struggling actress who says she had been ‘couch surfing’ — talks about getting a call from her mother, who offers her a nice place to live, so long as she lives with her father and keeps an eye on him.

Imagine. This young girl with wealthy parents who clearly could have set her up safely in a mid-priced condo, would only do so contingent on taking care of her wildly unstable, angry and moody father.

That moment says everything.

It perhaps explains how a seemingly ‘normal’ Hollywood family like the Reiners flew under the radar for so long. How the presence of a Nick Reiner at Conan O’Brien’s holiday party would be tolerated.

It explains how Alec Baldwin can be involved in the accidental shooting death of a female crew member on set and complain, as he did just a few weeks ago, that it has ‘taken 10 years off my life’.

Or how Chelsea Handler can take the stage at the Critics Choice Awards, as she did on Sunday, and lecture the little people at home about the importance of ‘decency’ — as she speaks to a room full of celebrities who said nothing about Diddy, and who to this day remain silent.

Chevy Chase would have one more comeback, in 2009 on the hit network sitcom Community — but that, too, ended in a metaphorical fireball, Chase exiting under claims that he had used the ‘N-word’ on set in front of his black co-star Yvette Nicole Brown.

She has never confirmed it, but Chase, according to Community director Jay Chandrasekhar, knew his career was over one day later, when The Hollywood Reporter broke the story.

Chase, the director says in the doc, came ‘storming onto the set, and he goes, ‘Who f***ed me over?’ … ‘My career is ruined! I’m ruined!’ Like, it’s a full meltdown. ‘F*** all of you!’

Chevy Chase (right) would have one more comeback, in 2009 on sitcom Community (cast pictured) — but that, too, ended in a metaphorical fireball, Chase exiting under claims that he had used the ‘N-word’ in front of his black co-star Yvette Nicole Brown (center).

 Chase’s third wife Jayni Chase defended her husband’s behaviour in the documentary 

The excuse for Chase’s bad behavior, he and his defenders say, is that Chase suffered from physically abusive parents, a claim backed up by his brothers.

Chase’s mother, they say, would wake a young Chevy up by smacking him in the face.

Chase’s half-brother John admits that the home was violent, his father — Chevy’s stepfather — having ‘a flash anger. He could lash out with a single blow… He did not take to anything that he perceived as insolence. Chevy was insolent.’

That is awful. Truly terrible. But it doesn’t give Chase license to be, as Terry Sweeney said, a monster.

The doc ends with Chase, back at SNL for its 50th anniversary celebration last year, expressing hurt and confusion that he was not invited to perform.

Like all narcissists, he doesn’t get it. Chase just does not understand that his actions have consequences, that he has been the aggressor, and that apologies are owed not to him but the other way around.

‘Somebody’s made a bad mistake there,’ he says of his exclusion.

The ‘bad mistake’ is Chase’s alone.

Hollywood’s aging stars wonder why it’s dying. But really, they need look no further: There’s no horror movie that could ever compete with the monsters this place creates.