Eddie Murphy's 'SNL' Monologue Enrages Bill Cosby's Team: 'Back to Being a Hollywood Slave'
A spokesman for Bill Cosby tore into Eddie Murphy, calling him a “Hollywood slave” after the comedian mocked Cosby during his opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend.
Apparently Murphy was settling an old score with “America’s Dad” that stemmed back to the 1980s.
“This is the last episode of 2019, but if you’re black this is the first episode since I left back in 1984,” Murphy joked during the opening of his monologue on Saturday.
The 58-year-old then related that a lot had happened in his life since then, including now having 10 kids, with his most recent being born just last year.
“If you had told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring stay-at-home house dad and Bill Cosby would be in jail, even I would’ve took that bet,” Murphy said.
“Who’s America’s dad now?” the comedian asked, while impersonating Cosby to the cheers of the audience.
Joe Piscopo, who was an SNL cast mate with Murphy in the 1980s, told Fox Business on Monday, “Cosby was Eddie’s hero.”
However, Piscopo remembered that Murphy was “devastated” after receiving a call from the comic legend complaining about the 1987 stand-up special “Eddie Murphy Raw.”
“Cosby just called me, man,” Murphy said, according to Piscopo. “He railed me for being too dirty — he railed me — he yelled at me for like 20 minutes.”
Loni Love, co-host and producer of “The Real” talk show, affirmed that Murphy’s dig at Cosby was intentional and rooted in the history between the two men.
She tweeted, “30 yrs ago Cosby (‘America’s Dad’) called Murphy and told him that his filthy comedy was a bad influence on family morality. It’s not a random dig. It’s a callback.”
30 yrs ago Cosby (“America’s Dad”) called Murphy and told him that his filthy comedy was a bad influence on family morality.
It’s not a random dig. It’s a callback. https://t.co/GcBWIuFbGJ— Loni Love (@LoniLove) December 23, 2019
In a statement, Cosby’s spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said, “Mr. Cosby became the first Black to win an Emmy for his role in I Spy and Mr. Cosby broke color barriers in the Entertainment Industry, so that Blacks like Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappell [sic], Kevin Hart and et al. [sic], could have an opportunity to showcase their talents for many generations to come.”
“It is sad that Mr. Murphy would take this glorious moment of returning to SNL and make disparaging remarks against Mr. Cosby,” Wyatt added.
“One would think that Mr. Murphy was given his freedom to leave the plantation so that he could make his own decisions, but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood Slave.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Murphy-hosted SNL generated the program’s highest ratings since May 2017, with nearly 10 million viewers tuning in.
Cosby, 82, was sentenced in September 2018 in a Pennsylvania court to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. About 60 women have accused him of some form of sexual assault or misconduct, according to USA Today. Cosby is currently serving his sentence at State Correctional Institute Phoenix in Pennsylvania.
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