Eddie Murphy recalls David Spade’s ‘racist’ joke that sparked controversy on ‘SNL’

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, ‘Yeah, it’s inside me!’,” he said. “‘I’m one of the family, and you’re messing with me like this?’ It hurt my feelings like that.”

The actor who played the lead role SNL From 1980 through 1984, he was referring to a 1995 sketch called “Hollywood Minute” in which Spade showed a photo of Murphy before joking, “Look, kids, he’s a falling star. Make a wish.” Tell Murphy times The stab wound was in response to his 1995 film. Vampire in Brooklyn Lockers at the ticket office.

The drilling surprised him. “It was like, ‘Hey, hey. This is it Saturday Night Live“I’m the biggest thing that ever came out of this show,” he said. “The show would have been canceled if I hadn’t come back, and now you have someone from the cast talking about my career?

Murphy also expressed his annoyance that production agreed with this remark. “I knew he couldn’t simply 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’ve been on that show, you’ve never heard that anyone hasn’t joked about anyone’s career. Most people who come out of that show, they don’t go on to work and have these amazing careers. It was personal.”

“It was like, ‘How could you do that?’ My job? Really? A joke about my career? So I thought that was a cheap shot. It was kind of racist, I thought, and I felt like it was racist,” he continued.

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

However, Spade admitted that he misunderstood why the joke had affected Murphy in his 2015 memoir, Almost interesting.

“The sarcasm I directed at Eddie could be the thing that starts to turn public opinion against someone,” he wrote. “I try not to think about the victims when I make cruel jokes, but sometimes there are consequences. I know I can’t stand it when it comes my way. It’s horrible for all the same reasons. I’ve come to see Eddie’s point of view on this. Everyone in show business wants people to like them. That’s how you get fans. But when you’re bombarded in a sketch or online or in any other way, that’s just too bad.”

Talk to timesMurphy said he and Spade are now on good terms. “In the long run, everything is good, and it’s worked out great. I’m great with David Spade, I’m great with Lorne Michaels. I’m back on SNL“It was all love, but I got some cheap shots,” he said, referring to his appearance in the show’s 40th anniversary special in 2015.