Eddie Murphy Admits Some of His Old Jokes Were 'Ignorant'
Eddie Murphy is bracing himself for a major comeback, with a new Netflix standup special, a starring role as Rudy Ray Moore in movie Dolemite Is My Name, and a hosting gig on Saturday Night Live — not to mention a long-awaited sequel to Coming to America. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Murphy reflected on his three-decade career, and how his approach to comedy has changed.
"I was a young guy processing a broken heart, you know, kind of an asshole," he said of his star-making standup show Raw. "“I now have a whole lifetime of experiences to draw upon."
In the profile, he "describes himself now as a completely different person than he was back then" and refers to old jokes about AIDS as "ignorant." At a time when comedians are mocking cancel culture and the #MeToo movement and doubling down on jokes that are deemed offensive, it's refreshing to hear a comic move with the times and distance himself from jokes that don't hold up under a modern lens.
Murphy's willingness to learn and acknowledge fault in his older material came up during a recent conversation between Andy Cohen and actor Tituss Burgess, who also appears in Dolemite Is My Name. While interviewing Burgess on Watch What Happens Live, Cohen asked: "I was just wondering if you got close at all, because he was very problematic for the gays at one point," to which Burgess simply replied: "He wasn’t problematic for Tituss." He said that Murphy "loved" him, and another guest on the show, trans actress Laverne Cox, added: "It was a long time ago, people can evolve."
"I'm mushier than I used to be," Murphy said in the article. "There was a time when I was at the center of everything, what I was doing, and how funny I was and how popular…I’m not at the center. Now my kids are and everything revolves around them."
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