Eddie Murphyrecalled being offended by a "racist" joke that David Spade made about him during a "Saturday Night Live" sketch that aired almost 30 years ago.
During Saturday's episode of The New York Times’The Interviewpodcast, the 63-year-old actor and comedian reflected on the "cheap shots" that he felt he had taken over the years, especially from the media during the early years of his career.
In the 'SNL' segment, a photo of Murphy appeared on the screen with Spade saying, "Look children, it's a falling star, make a wish."
"Yo, it’s in-house! I’m one of the family, and you’re f------ with me like that?" It hurt my feelings like that, yeah," Murphy told the NYT.
He continued, "It was like: Wait, hold on. This is ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I’m the biggest thing that ever came off that show. The show would have been off the air if I didn’t go back on the show, and now you got somebody from the cast making a crack about my career?"
"And I know that he can’t just say that," Murphy added. "A joke has to go through these channels. So the producers thought it was OK to say that. And 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. 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."
Should David Spade apologize to Eddie Murphy over his feelings being hurt?
I don’t see the racism in that joke. If he really was the “biggest thing” to come from that show, then it shouldn’t really bother him, right?
It just sounds like more narcissism and victim hood. Personally, I think people who dig this deep into the past over a very mild joke have too much time on their hands and either haven’t experienced a lot of genuine challenges in their life, OR they’re far removed from whatever challenges they’ve faced. We’ve all been the ass end of a joke we probably didn’t like, but we move on and don’t get bent out of shape over it.