Eddie Murphy recalled David Spade’s joke on Saturday Night Live (SNL) about his then-turbulent career in his new Netflix documentary, Being Eddie. He says that the joke “hurt” him and made him cut ties with the show, calling them “dirty motherf****r.”
Eddie Murphy revisits David Spade’s SNL joke, explains why he didn’t return for years
In Being Eddie, the Beverly Hills Cop actor recalled how a joke David Spade made during a December 1995 SNL episode offended him, as it mocked his rocky career he was going through at the time.
“It’s like your alma mater taking a shot at you,” Murphy recalled. “I wasn’t like, f**k David Spade. I was like, oh, f**k SNL. F**k y’all. How y’all gonna do this s**t? That’s what y’all think of me? Oh, you dirty motherf*****s.” He added, “And that’s why I didn’t go back for years.”
The joke Murphy refers to happened on December 9, 1995. During his “Spade in America” segment, Spade mocked the former’s box office flop, Vampire in Brooklyn. Furthermore, after a photo of Murphy appeared on the screen, Spade said, “Look, children, it’s a falling star. Make a wish.” Moreover, his comments drew immediate disapproval from the studio audience.
“The audience there said ‘boo,’ and hissed him for saying it,” Murphy recalled in the documentary. “I was hurt. My feelings was hurt.” He further explained that the producers had reviewed the joke but still allowed it to make it to the live show, which disappointed him. This decision made him cut ties with the show he had been part of since 1980.
Nonetheless, the Coming to America star acknowledged that the producers have since changed the process, and such jokes would be “shot down.”
“If there was a joke like that right now, and it was about some other SNL cast member, and it was about how f****d up their career was, it would get shot down,” the Dr. Dolittle actor explained. “The producers look at you, ‘You can’t, you’re not saying that joke.’”
However, 35 years after the incident, Murphy hosted an SNL episode on December 21, 2019. He said that going back to host the show “was a great experience.”
Being Eddie is currently available to stream on Netflix.
Originally reported by Harsha Panduranga on Comingsoon.
