Larry Wilcox claims Erik Estrada got him fired from CHiPs, then forgave him
The former CHiPs costars clashed over the NBC series in a dispute Wilcox says Estrada helped engineer; Wilcox later says he reconciled and now views the feud through a different lens.
Larry Wilcox, the former CHiPs star who played Officer Jon Baker, is adding new details to a long-running on-set rift. In a recent appearance on the Still Here Hollywood Podcast with Steve Kmetko, Wilcox, now 78, alleged that Erik Estrada, his on-screen partner who played Officer Frank Ponch, had him fired from the NBC crime drama after five seasons. Wilcox described Estrada in stark terms, saying, “At the time, it seemed to be like I was working with the biggest egotistical a–hole I’d ever met in my life.” He added that the five-year run was not about him, but about a lead dynamic that Estrada was trying to control. Estrada, now 76, has not publicly commented on the claims.
Wilcox said the news of his dismissal came to him through his agent, who learned from NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff that Estrada had pushed him out. He recounted: “He said, ‘You know he loves your work. But they’re going to let you go on CHiPs. Erik had you fired.’” Wilcox explained that the revelation came with a sting: the show’s producers needed a sixth season to maintain syndication value, even though they were already committed to a fifth. The agent supposedly relayed, with a sense of inevitability, that Wilcox would be leaving the series unless Estrada’s demands could be met. Wilcox recalled the moment he heard the news as a turning point: “This is where the spiral really begins.”
In the chronology of CHiPs, a pivotal incident followed in 1979, when Estrada sustained a serious motorcycle accident on set. Wilcox said he administered first aid to his co-star at the scene, helping to save his life. A second on-set accident further complicated the dynamics, and Estrada responded by suing NBC and MGM, a lawsuit that Wilcox says helped precipitate his firing. The agent’s line at the time underscored the leverage Estrada held: he had the possibility to walk or to be kept on if others conceded to his demands. The tension over control of the series’ star status contributed to a power struggle that Wilcox described as rooted in the show’s business imperatives rather than purely personal enmity. 
To manage the setback, Wilcox’s team devised a defense: they shaped the departure as his own choice, an image of resilience rather than defeat. He said he secured an interview with a journalist in which he presented a voluntary exit, a narrative he believed would minimize the perception of a loss. “That worked really well,” Wilcox recalled. In the years that followed, he said he carried anger toward Estrada, describing a younger, more impulsive mindset that briefly regretted any chance of reconciliation. The tensions surfaced in his admission that he once fantasized about confronting Estrada, a sentiment he later described as a “punk” impulse and something he apologized for.
As the story moved through the production ecosystem, Cy Chermak, CHiPs’ longtime producer, told Wilcox that he had been in the meeting where Estrada’s actions were discussed. Chermak reportedly recounted the “whole story” of what happened, and Wilcox said the revelation was troubling, touching on abandonment and disloyalty. The sense that a trusted partner had leveraged on-set power to remove him was a heavy burden to bear, and Wilcox said it colored how he understood the events in the years that followed. "Abandonment, disloyalty, all the things that I get upset about" were among the feelings he described confronting years after the firing.
Yet time, circumstance, and perspective altered the tenor of Wilcox’s memory. He said he eventually chose a path of forgiveness, deciding to “love on this guy unconditionally.” He described a shift from animosity to a practical, if nuanced, relationship-building approach: “If he wanted to upstage me, I helped him. I just compromised submission on every single level. And I got back all the rewards.” With that change came a different frame for their CHiPs years. Wilcox said he now watches Estrada as a spectator, recognizing that Estrada’s drive to be the star was a factor in the dynamic at the time. “He was fighting for his life to be the star of the series, and, in a way, you were in his way,” Wilcox reflected. “So I actually enjoy him now. I watch him as a spectator. Like all of us, I see good and bad in Erik Estrada, but a lot of entertainment. He’s an entertainer that loves to be an entertainer. So be it. God bless him.”
The industry details surrounding CHiPs offer a broader context for Wilcox’s tale. The NBC series ran from 1977 to 1983, and Wilcox was ultimately replaced by Tom Reilly in the show’s sixth and final season. He later returned for the 1998 reunion TV film, but the central competitive dynamic—between Estrada’s star power and Wilcox’s leadership on screen—appears to have shaped the arc of the show’s later years. The Post has reached out to Estrada’s representative for comment, but there was no immediate response at the time of publication.
CHiPs remains a pop-cultural touchstone of late 1970s and early 1980s television, and the memories of its cast members continue to surface in interviews and retrospectives. Wilcox’s account, while personal and highly specific to CHiPs’ on-set experiences, reflects a larger pattern in entertainment where star power and creative control intersect with network economics. For fans of the show, the revelations add a new layer to the familiar nostalgia: a reminder that even iconic partnerships can be shaped by business pressures, ego, and the high-stakes calculus of syndication. The evolving narrative between Wilcox and Estrada underscores how past disagreements can give way to reconciliation, a transformation Wilcox describes as not only possible but ultimately meaningful for both men.
The cultural memory of CHiPs, fortified by archival footage and reunions, continues to be a touchstone for discussions about collaboration, career longevity, and the sometimes thorny path from on-screen partnership to real-world relationship. As Wilcox and Estrada’s chapters in CHiPs unfold in public discourse, audiences gain a more textured understanding of how television histories are written—and how forgiveness can redefine a legacy that once seemed to hinge on conflict.