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 feels like he's 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 were mean to me, and a lot of it was racial stuff,” Murphy responded, noting that at the time “there was no black Hollywood. There were no rappers, no hip-hop. That was in 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 title 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 strike was a response to his 1995 film Vampire in Brooklyn It failed at the box office.

The digging process surprised him. “It was like, ‘Hey, hey. This is where I live.” Saturday Night Live“I'm the greatest thing to ever come out of this show,” he said. The show was going to go off the air if I didn't come back to the show, and now you have someone from the cast making fun of 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, 'Man, how could you do that?' My career? Really? A joke about my career? So I thought that was a cheap shot. And it was kind of racist, I thought – I felt like it was racist,” he continued.

Spade addressed the ramifications of the joke in a 1997 interview with Entertainment Weekly“Chris Rock told me, ‘Speed, Eddie’s got his biggest movie in 10 years, he’s got a beautiful wife, and he still can’t get over the fact that you hit him,’” he said at the time. “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.

“A hit like the one you hit 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 there are consequences sometimes. I know for a fact that I can't stand it when it comes my way. It's terrible for the same reasons. I came to see Eddie's point of view on this. Everyone in the industry Entertainment wants people to like them, that's how you get fans, but when you get recast in a sketch or online or anyway, it's great.”

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