cnn
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Eddie Murphy reflects on some of the “cheap shots” he believes he has made over the years.
The Oscar-nominated actor and comedian, whose new film, “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” hits Netflix next week, was asked in an interview with the New York Times if he feels he has received unfair treatment from the press and his peers over the years.
“In the old days, they used to be unforgiving to me and a lot of them were racist comments,” Murphy said.
After mentioning that “it was a whole different world” when he was coming up in the ’80s, Murphy brought up an example “when David Spade said that shit about my career on ‘SNL.’”
The segment in question, from a December 1995 episode in which Spade reviewed the year during “Hollywood Minute,” included a photo of Murphy on which Spade commented: “Look, kids, it’s a shooting star. Make a wish.” Murphy told the Times that the joke came about after his film, “Vampire in Brooklyn,” flopped at the box office.
“It was like, ‘Hey, it’s internal! I’m part of the family, and you’re screwing me like this? It hurt my feelings like that,” Murphy said.
He rose to stardom on “SNL” as part of the main cast between 1980 and 1984, and is often cited as the reason the show was at one point saved from going off the air.
“The producers thought it was OK to say that. None of the people who have been on that show have ever heard anyone make jokes about anyone’s race. Most people who come off that show don’t go on and have amazing careers. It was a personal thing,” Murphy later added. “It was like, ‘How could you do that?’ My race? Really? A joke about my race? So I thought it was a low blow. And I thought it was kind of racist.”
Spade later wrote about receiving a phone call from an angry Murphy after the incident and feeling terrible about his “stupid joke.”
“I’ve come to understand Eddie’s point of view on this one,” Spade wrote. “Everyone in show business wants people to like them. That’s how you get fans. But when you get criticized in a sketch or on the Internet or wherever, that shit builds up. And it can build up fast.”
Murphy has stayed away from the NBC sketch show over the years, although he briefly appeared on the “SNL” 40th anniversary special in 2015 and returned as host to much fanfare in 2019.
“In the long run, it’s all good, it all worked out great. I get along with David Spade, I get along with Lorne Michaels. I’m back on SNL,” Murphy said this week. “It’s all love… but I got a couple of low blows!”