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We can be sure that at least two people weren’t laughing during Eddie Murphy’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue.
The comedian returned to NBC’s CMCSA, +0.16% pioneering sketch comedy show for the first time in 35 years on Saturday night — and took a jab at the disgraced comedian Bill Cosby in his opening monologue. “[I]f you would have 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 have took that bet,” Murphy said, adding, “Who is America’s Dad now?”
Read more: Eddie Murphy returns to ‘SNL,’ and brings ‘half of Netflix’s budget’ onstage
He was taking a shot at Cosby’s formerly clean-cut image, which made him a household name as he played beloved characters including the patriarch Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.” That image was tarnished as Cosby was accused of sexual misconduct by at least 60 women and convicted on three counts of sexual assault in 2018. He is currently serving three to 10 years for drugging and molesting a woman in 2004, and the Superior Court of Pennsylvania is weighing his appeal of the 2018 conviction.
Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt clapped back at Murphy on Cosby’s official Instagram page on Sunday. He called out Murphy’s “disparaging remarks” and noted that Cosby “broke color barriers in the Entertainment Industry, so that Blacks like Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappell, Kevin Hart and et al., could have an opportunity to showcase their talents for many generations to come.” The post included the hashtags #NotFunnySNL, #FarFromFinished and #FreeBillCosby.
But Wyatt is making headlines for this remark in particular:
‘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.’
“Remember, Mr. Murphy, that Bill Cosby became legendary because he used comedy to humanize all races, religions and genders; but your attacking Mr. Cosby helps you embark on just becoming click bait,” he added.
Here’s his statement on that Facebook-owned FB, -0.03% platform in full:
Cosby was trending on Twitter TWTR, +1.28% through Monday morning, with many comedians taking Murphy’s side and noting that there has been bad blood between both Cosby and Murphy for years.
Comedian and “The Real” co-host Loni Love tweeted that “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.”
Comic Cyrus McQueen added, “Bill Cosby’s literally in chains, but Eddie Murphy’s a ‘slave’? Yeah, okay … ”
Murphy could not be immediately reached for comment. But he did tell Jerry Seinfeld in a recent episode of Netflix’s NFLX, -1.02% “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” that Cosby used to criticize him for using bad language in his act. “He had a weird thing with me that he didn’t have with other comics,” Murphy said. “It was mean. … He wasn’t nice. He wasn’t doing that with everybody; he was doing that with me specifically. He was sh— with me.”
And Murphy also shared in his 1987 “Raw” comedy special that Cosby once phoned him to complain about his performances.
“I’m a big fan of Bill Cosby,” Murphy said in the “Raw” special. “But he called me up about a year ago and chastised me on the phone about being too dirty on the stage. It was real weird because I had never met him, and he just thought he should call me up, because he was Bill, and tell me that that isn’t what comedy is all about.”
