Chase Chrisley spoke candidly about his drinking habits and recent arrest during the two-night premiere of Lifetime’s The Chrisleys: Back to Reality.
In episode 2 of the new docuseries, which aired Monday, September 1, Chase, 29, and his family opened up about the highs and lows that came with reality TV fame. Fans were first introduced to the Chrisleys in 2014 thanks to USA Network’s Chrisley Knows Best. The series and its spinoff, Growing Up Chrisley, were canceled after Todd and Julie Chrisley were sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison for multiple tax evasion and bank fraud charges.
“I 100 percent took the show for granted,” Chase said in a confessional on Monday. “It was, like, the best job in the world. After my parents went away, when I started drinking, I would just go and go and go and go. [I] wasn’t setting any boundaries for myself and didn’t really have anybody to tell me no.”
Chase was arrested in January on a simple battery charge after being named as a suspect in an alleged assault at an Atlanta bar. He was taken into police custody and later released on a $10,000 bond.
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Chase told the Lifetime cameras that he didn’t “remember a lot” from the night the incident occurred but insisted he “wouldn’t slap somebody.” (In a police report, the manager claimed Chase was “belligerent” and “slapped him in the face twice” after being asked to leave the bar.)
“Everybody there says I didn’t put my hands on anybody, but I mean, it ended up with me with a mugshot. I think I kinda just hit rock bottom,” Chase said, admitting he had been “drinking heavily.”
Following the incident, Chase’s attorneys claimed in a statement that the situation was “entirely blown out of proportion.” His family, however, expressed their concerns as cameras rolled on their new doc.
“When I had to find out about my son’s arrest while I was in prison, it makes me afraid,” Julie, 52, said in audio from a prison phone call. “The worst possible thing as a parent that you can think of is the thought that he is conducting himself in a way that is leading him down a bad path. It just, it breaks my heart.”
Todd, 56, was somewhat less heartbroken. “I don’t know that I was shocked, because I had been warning Chase for years to stop with the drinking. There’s nothing in a bar that was gonna bring you no good fortune,” he said in his own phone call.
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Viewers were later shown a video message Todd recorded the night before he and Julie reported to prison in 2023. In the clip, Todd told his son that he loves him and encouraged him to stop partying. “Don’t you ever give up in life, and more importantly, don’t give up on yourself,” Todd added.
Chase’s girlfriend, Jodi Laine Fournerat, acknowledged that the couple went through “a tough time” because of his drinking habits. His siblings Savannah and Grayson Chrisley appeared exasperated by his behavior.
“The same set of parents he lost is the same set I lost,” Grayson, 19, said while sitting down with Todd’s mom, Nanny Faye. “But I’m not gonna sit there and hold his hand ’cause I’ve already been a big brother to him. He ain’t been one to me.”
Savannah, meanwhile, confessed that her first thought after Chase’s arrest was, “Dear God, can I please change my last name?” She further claimed she went to great lengths to help her brother before things went “downhill.”
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“I have tried. I have tried to help him. Before he got arrested, I had set up for him to go to a treatment facility. I had already bought him a plane ticket. We had already gone through the whole intake process,” she said. “And then he told me to go eff myself.”
While Chase told the cameras that he’s pumped the brakes on his partying for the sake of his “mental health,” Savannah wasn’t so sure. “He does not look healthy,” she claimed.
Before Todd and Julie were pardoned and released from prison in May, Chase heard from his father about his battery arrest. “My dad didn’t call me and bitch me out or anything,” Chase recalled. “I think he was just more disappointed. Which I would’ve rather him bitch me out than be disappointed. Like, that’s just the worst thing to hear.”
The Chrisleys: Back to Reality continues on Lifetime Tuesday, September 2, at 8 p.m. ET with another two back-to-back episodes on September 9. The finale airs September 16.
