Eddie Murphy Recalls David Spade’s ‘Racist’ Joke That Sparked ‘SNL’ Controversy

Eddie Murphy looks back on some of the “cheap shots” he’s had to endure throughout his career, including the one that sparked his long-running feud with David Spade.

the Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F The star was asked if he felt he had been treated unfairly over the years by the press and his colleagues in a new interview with New York times.

“In the old days, they treated me like shit, and a lot of it had to do with racial stuff,” Murphy responded, noting that at the time “there was no black Hollywood. There were no rappers, no hip-hop. That was the ’80s.”

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While he admitted it was a “completely different world” when he first emerged as a comedian, he admitted he felt “very hurt” when Spade said “nonsense about my career” on Saturday night live After a decade.

“It was like, ‘Oh my God, this is inside me!’” he said. “‘I’m a family member, and you’re messing with me like this?’ It hurt my feelings like this.”

The actor who played the lead role SNL From 1980 through 1984, he was referring to a 1995 “Hollywood Minute” sketch in which Spade showed a photo of Murphy before jokingly saying: “Look kids, he’s a falling star. Make a wish.” Murphy said times The strike was in response to his 1995 film Vampire in Brooklyn It failed at the box office.

The dig surprised him. “It was like, ‘Hey, hey. This is it.’” Saturday Night Live“I’m the greatest thing that ever came out of this show,” he said. “The show would have gone off the air if I didn’t come back, and now you have someone from the cast making fun of my career?”

Murphy was also upset that production greenlighted the suspension. “I knew he couldn’t just say that — the joke would have to go through these channels — so the producers thought it was OK to say that,” he said. “All the people who were on that show, you never heard anyone not joke about someone’s career. Most people who come out of that show, they don’t go on and have these amazing careers. It was personal.”

“It was like, ‘Man, how can you do that?'” he continued. My career? Really? A joke about my career? So I thought that was kind of cheap, I thought – I felt like it was racist.”

Spade spoke about the repercussions of the joke in a 1997 interview with Entertainment Weekly“Chris Rock said to me, ‘Spade, Eddie has his biggest movie in 10 years, a beautiful wife, and he still can’t get over the fact that you slapped him,’” he said at the time. “Tell him three words that will change his life: Let it go,” I said.

However, Spade admitted that he came to understand why the joke bothered Murphy in his 2015 memoir, Almost interesting.

“The sarcasm I directed at Eddie could be the thing that begins to turn public opinion against someone,” he wrote. “I try not to think about the victims when I make cruel jokes, but there are consequences sometimes. I know I can’t handle it when it comes my way. It’s terrible for all the same reasons. I get Eddie’s point of view on this. Everyone in show business They want people to like them that way you get fans but when you get bombarded in a drawing or online or in any other way, it’s very bad.

Talk to timesMurphy said he and Spade are on good terms now. “In the long run, everything is fine, things have gone well. I’m fine with David Spade, I’m fine with Lorne Michaels. I’m back in SNL,” he said, referring to his appearance at the show’s 40th anniversary special in 2015. “It’s all love, but I had a few cheap shots.”