There’s a moment in the new Netflix documentary, Being Eddie, in which Eddie Murphy recognizes his authentic self. It’s a glimpse into an identity he rarely showed the media, he says, still smarting over early movie and television reviews that he believes gave him unfair treatment.
“Early in my career, they used to hammer me so much. I used to do print stuff, and in the early days, they used to really hammer me and really rip me,” Murphy told Entertainment Weekly. “I thought it was mean-spirited, and some of it was racist. So it put a bad taste in my mouth.”
There weren’t many Black stars when Murphy burst onto the scene as Saturday Night Live’s breakout sensation. “It was a whole different world when I blew up in 1980,” he said. “It’s a whole different America. We don’t have Oprah yet. We don’t have hip hop yet. We don’t have Michael Jordan yet. So I’m kind of out there, and some of the old America racist shit would creep into stuff, you know? So I stopped doing press really, really early on.”
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Murphy didn’t give EW examples of the racism he experienced, but he’s talked about it to other outlets. In a 2024 New York Times interview, the comic talked about the sting of David Spade taking a shot on Saturday Night Live. In the Hollywood Minute bit (which Spade would come to regret), a picture of Eddie Murphy is over Spade’s shoulder as he says, “Look, children, it’s a falling star. Make a wish.” When the crowd exploded in disbelief, Spade doubled down. “That’s right! Make a Hollywood Minute omelette, you break some eggs.”
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“I thought that was a cheap shot and it was kind of racist,” Murphy told the New York Times. “I felt it was racist.”
Beyond the perception of racial undertones in Murphy’s early reviews, critics’ general negativity left a mark. “They used to rip all my movies,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “Beverly Hills Cop was two thumbs way down, and Coming to America was two thumbs way down. And everything I would do, they would shit on it.”
True. While Beverly Hills Cop was liked by most critics, Ebert gave it a pan: “Eddie Murphy looks like the latest victim of the Star Magic Syndrome, in which it is assumed that a movie will be a hit simply because it stars an enormously talented person.”
Siskel actually liked Coming to America, but Ebert gave it a thumbs down, praising Murphy but calling the script “a lethargic retread.”
Negativity is why Murphy says he stopped doing press, although he claims he was able to get past the poor reviews. “It was never like something I would take to heart. It would be like, ‘Oh, that’s just some racist shit,’” he said. “That’s the way it was during those times.”
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