John Candy’s son condemns interviewers who grilled late father about his weight: ‘I was shocked’

John Candy’s son, Chris Candy, has reflected on how interviewers treated his late father, specifically regarding his weight.

The actor and comedian died in 1994, aged 43, from a heart attack while filming Wagons East in Durango, Mexico, when Chris was nine years old.

During a screening of the recently released documentary, John Candy: I Like Me, Chris appeared alongside the film’s director Colin Hanks, producer Ryan Reynolds, and Tony winner Hugh Jackman when the late comedian’s son was asked what “piece of the puzzle” he learned about his father by participating in the movie.

“I was kind of shocked to see how interviewers treat him,” Chris told the crowd at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, adding that many of the journalists would ask questions about his weight. “That was just kind of heart-wrenching. And I also could see how he got more frustrated, and he found ways to deal with that.”

“I learned through the process of this that he was so nervous about eating in front of people because of paparazzi,” he continued. “He developed a poor eating habit where he'd be like, ‘Alright, well I'm not going to eat all day. I'm going to eat at night.’”

“When I hear stories like that, I just felt so bad for him because it's like, ‘How cornered are you?’ And you really want in those moments, as his son or as his friend, to be able to grab him by his shoulders and say, ‘Why the f*** do you have to do this? Just who cares? Have a sandwich and get mad about it.’”

The new documentary — which first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and has been available to stream on Prime Video since Friday — features interviews from both his former co-stars and friends, including Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Mel Brooks, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy and Dan Aykroyd.

Last month, Reynolds revealed he and director Hanks had made a conscious decision to cut an archival scene that included an inflammatory comment about the late comedian’s weight.

“There was a lot of things we left out of the documentary, journalists just saying stuff. One of them I called. I didn't put it in the movie, but I called this journalist just to see,” the Deadpool star said at the time.

The actor stressed that he wasn’t trying to teach the journalist a lesson but wanted to get his thoughts on the comments all these years later.

“[I told him] I took it out of the movie, but I'd put it in the movie if you wanted to talk about it, because maybe you have something to say about it, about your journey whenever it comes to something like that,” Reynolds said. “We had such a thoughtful conversation about it.”

John Candy: I Like Me is available to stream on Prime Video.