Murphy admits ‘SNL’ grudge
NEW YORK – Eddie Murphy explains in a new Rolling Stone interview that he’s kept his distance from “Saturday Night Live” for years because of jokes his former show made about him.
“They were shitty to me on ‘Saturday Night Live’ a couple of times after I’d left the show,” he said. “They said some shitty things.”
Those things included an early 1990s “Weekend Update” jest in which David Spade showed Murphy’s face and said, “Look, children, a falling star.”
“I made a stink about it, it became part of the folklore,” Murphy, star of the new “Tower Heist,” told the magazine. “What really irritated me about it at the time was that it was a career shot … I felt shitty about it for years, but now, I don’t have none of that.”
Though Murphy is one of the biggest names to come out of the show, he’s separated from the casts that have made jokes about him in one way: He joined during the show’s Jean Doumanian era, when she replaced Lorne Michaels as executive producer for ten months from 1980-81, before being replaced by Dick Ebersol. Michaels returned in 1985.
Discovering Murphy — known for such classic “SNL” roles as Gumby, Mr. Robinson, and Buckwheat — is widely considered Doumanian’s greatest contribution to the show.