Eddie Murphy\u2019s hostility towards Saturday Night Live<\/i> was so strong that he swore he\u2019d never return to the show he said was run by \u201cdirty motherf—ers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murphy first revealed last June<\/a> that he was \u201churt\u201d by the \u201cracist\u201d joke David Spade made about his career on SNL <\/i>in 1995. But in the new Netflix documentary Being Eddie<\/i>, out Wednesday, Murphy said the intensity of his aversion to the show was much more severe. The SNL<\/i> alum rose to fame during his tenure there from 1980 to 1984, before he became a worldwide movie star. By the time Spade made a crack about a recent critical flop at the time, Murphy was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and the first Black one.<\/p>\n That bit made Spade\u2019s joke feel all the more pointed, Murphy says in the doc.<\/p>\n Being Eddie<\/i> spans Murphy\u2019s career from his earliest beginnings and features interviews about Murphy\u2019s impact from Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Jamie Foxx, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jerry Seinfeld, John Landis, Kenan Thompson, Kevin Hart, Michael Che, Pete Davidson, Tracy Morgan, Arsenio Hall, Brian Grazer, and more. Murphy gets personal throughout the doc, despite his seemingly limitless star power\u2014and one of those moments is his take on Spade\u2019s joke.<\/p>\n Murphy starred on SNL from 1980 to 1984. \/ NBC<\/p>\n \u201cLook, children, it\u2019s a falling star. Make a wish,\u201d Spade said from the \u201cWeekend Update\u201d desk at the time. \u201cYou make a Hollywood minute omelet, you break some eggs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cI just had Vampire in Brooklyn<\/i> come out,\u201d Murphy says in the doc, as a clip of the segment rolls. \u201cThe audience there said \u2018Boo\u2019 and hissed at him for saying it, right? So I was like, hurt. My feelings was hurt. It was like, \u2018Yo, I\u2019m from the same… It\u2019s like your alma mater taking a shot at you\u2014at my career, not how funny I was, calling me \u2018a falling star.\u2019 If there was a joke like that right now, and it was about some other SNL<\/i> cast member, and it was about how f—ed up their career was, it would get shot down.\u201d<\/p>\n Murphy told The New York Times<\/i> podcast The Interview<\/i><\/a> last year, \u201cI thought that was a cheap shot, and I thought\u2014I felt it was racist.\u201d<\/p>\n Spade revealed that Murphy called him up after the segment aired, writing from his memoir in 2015<\/a>, \u201cIt was so much worse than I had imagined,\u201d he continued, \u201cI wanted to apologize, explain the joke, anything, but nothing came out. Here was one of my favorite comedians of all time ripping me a new asshole. I had worshipped this dude for years, knew every line of his stand-up. And now he hated me. Like, really really hated me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was horrible. I didn\u2019t hate him. Of course not. He just got caught in friendly fire and my deep desire to make an impression on my bosses and keep my job. How pathetic. I took my beating and then he hung up,\u201d Spade also wrote.<\/p>\n Murphy says in the doc that it was how many people at the show had to approve the joke that upset him, more than any specific beef with Spade himself. \u201cThe joke had went through all of those channels that the joke has to go through, and then he was on the air saying, \u2018Catch a falling star.\u2019 So I wasn\u2019t like, \u2018F— David Spade.\u2019 I was like, \u2018Oh, f— SNL<\/i>. F— y\u2019all. How y\u2019all going to do this s–t? That\u2019s what y\u2019all think of me? Oh, you dirty motherf—ers.\u2019 I was like that. And that\u2019s why I didn\u2019t go back for years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat little friction that I had with SNL was 35 years ago,\u201d Murphy says. \u201cI don\u2019t have no smoke with no David Spade. I don\u2019t have any heat or none of that with nobody.\u201d \/ NBC \/ NBCU Photo Bank\/NBCUniversal via<\/p>\n But then, after more than two decades, Murphy eventually let it go.<\/p>\n The doc shows behind the scenes footage of Murphy\u2019s return to the SNL<\/i> stage<\/a> to host its 2019 Christmas episode\u2014following a very brief and joke-free appearance at the 40th anniversary special in 2015. \u201cI was like, you know what? F— this. SNL<\/i> is part of my history,\u201d he says, \u201cI need to reconnect with that show because that\u2019s where I come from.\u201d<\/p>\n In the doc, Murphy details what it was like to host SNL’s 2019 Christmas episode. \/ Netflix<\/p>\n \u201cThat little friction that I had with SNL<\/i> was 35 years ago,\u201d he goes on. \u201cI don\u2019t have no smoke with no David Spade. I don\u2019t have any heat or none of that with nobody.\u201d Murphy says he returned to the show after thinking, \u201cHey, let me go on SNL<\/i> and smooth that all out, and I did.\u201d The doc shows footage from Murphy\u2019s first meeting as a guest before the week\u2019s show. \u201cIt was surreal\u2026 I was thinking, \u2018Wow, this office feels smaller.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think Lorne wanted him to do something that was a little bit more personal because people just wanted him to hear him talk,\u201d Michael Che says in the doc. \u201cI think he was a little cautious of doing a monologue<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Rock says of his appearance on the show for Murphy\u2019s episode, \u201cI remember Lorne calling me, \u2018Come down.\u2019 I thought he was about to tell me Eddie had canceled and they wanted me to host.\u201d<\/p>\n Adds Kenan Thompson, \u201cHe just took his shoes off and respected the house, if you will. He just jumped in.\u201d Murphy\u2019s 2019 episode drew almost 10 million live viewers and became SNL<\/i>\u2019s highest-rated episode <\/a>in over a decade<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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