Eddie Murphy Reflects On David Spade’s ‘Racist’ SNL Joke About Him From ’90s

Murphy felt he was a constant target of racist jokes and media attention at the beginning of his career.

Eddie Murphy still harbors anger over what he considered a racist joke made by David Spade on Saturday Night Live episode in 1995.

Murphy spoke of the incident in an interview with The New York Times. The 63-year-old recalled how Spade made fun of his career during a sketch, going after Murphy’s 1995 film Vampire in Brooklyn failing at the box office. In Spade’s “Hollywood Minute” segment, the comedian showed a picture of the star and joked, “Look children, it’s a falling star. Make a wish.” Murphy felt the sketch had racist intentions and was a “cheap shot.”

“It was like: ‘Yo, it’s in-house! I’m one of the family, and you’re f*ck*ng with me like that?’ It hurt my feelings like that,” explained Murphy, who became a superstar and resurrected SNL in the early 1980s. “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?”

He added, “And I know that he can’t just say that. 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.”

Moreover, Murphy noted how media outlets racially targeted him, especially as he gained more traction. He also explained how his words would get misconstrued to project a “ghetto” image of the actor.

“Just think about it: Ronald Reagan was the president, and it was that America. You would do interviews, and you’re like: ‘I didn’t say that. I don’t talk that way,’” Murphy shared. “They would be writing it in this weird ghetto—I used to have weird [expletive] that would go on. Then I got really popular, and there was this negative backlash that comes with it. It’s like, I was the only one out there. I’m this young, rich, Black one. Everybody wasn’t happy about that in 1983. Even Black folks. You’d get cheap shots from your people.”

Despite the initial hurt, Murphy did note that his relationship with the SNL team and Spade had smoothed over. He returned to host the show in 2019, which led to him winning his first Emmy Award.

“In the long run, it’s all good,” explained the comedian. “Worked out great. I’m cool with David Spade. Cool with Lorne Michaels. I went back to ‘SNL.’ I’m cool with everybody. It’s all love.”