Eddie Murphy is still stung by that David Spade joke on ‘Saturday Night Live’ | CNN

CNN
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Eddie Murphy is reflecting on some of the “cheap shots” he feels he’s taken 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’s received unfair treatment from the press and his peers over the years.

“Back in the old days, they used to be relentless on me, and a lot of it was racist stuff,” Murphy said.

After mentioning how it “was a whole different world” when he was coming up in the 1980s, Murphy brought up an instance “when David Spade said that s-–t about my career on ‘SNL.’”

The segment in question, from a December 1995 episode in which Spade did a year-in-review during “Hollywood Minute,” included a picture of Murphy on which Spade commented, “Look children, it’s a falling star. Make a wish.” Murphy told the Times the joke came after his film, “Vampire in Brooklyn,” had flopped at the box office.

“It was like: ‘Yo, it’s in-house! I’m one of the family, and you’re f-–king with me like that?’ It hurt my feelings like that,” Murphy said.

He rose to stardom on “SNL” as part of the core 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. All the people that have been on that show, you’ve never heard nobody make no joke about anybody’s career. Most people that get off that show, they don’t go on and have these amazing careers. It was personal,” Murphy later added. “It was like, ‘Yo, 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, I thought – I felt it was racist.”

Spade later wrote about receiving a phone call from an upset Murphy after the bit and feeling horrible about his “stupid joke.”

“I’ve come to see Eddie’s point on this one, ” Spade wrote. “Everybody in showbiz wants people to like them. That’s how you get fans. But when you get reamed in a sketch or online or however, that s—t staaaangs. And it can add up quickly.”

Murphy has mostly stayed away from the long-running NBC sketch show over the years, though he appeared briefly in the “SNL” 40th anniversary special in 2015 and returned as a host to much fanfare in 2019.

“In the long run it’s all good, worked out great. I’m cool with David Spade, I’m cool with Lorne Michaels. I went back to SNL,” Murphy said this week. “It’s all love… but I had a couple of cheap shots!”