Eddie Murphy Reveals What He Was Really Going Through When He Made “Raw”

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Eddie Murphy Says Parts Of “RAW” Now Make Him Cringe

As ‘Dolemite Is My Name’ prepares to head to theaters October 4th (before heading to NETFLIX for streaming October 25) Eddie Murphy has been doing press to promote the movie as well as his upcoming return to stand up and a guest hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live.” But all jokes aside, Murphy reveals that some of his early material, especially the 1987 standup classic “Raw” now makes him cringe. In an interview with the New York Times Friday, Murphy says some of the callousness displayed in the special can be explained. After all, he was hurting over a breakup:

“I was a young guy processing a broken heart, you know, kind of an a**hole,” he said.

Murphy used the opportunity to speak openly about the criticism he got from jokes he made in the 80’s about fear of contracting AIDS from kissing gay men and his use of homophobic slurs. During his hiatus from the stage, Murphy blamed the backlash as the reason he stopped doing stand-up. Now that he’s plotting his return to standup, Murphy has no plans to ever stop, despite today’s even more sensitive climate.

“I went through all that stuff, so this is not scary,” he said about controversies over jokes. He pointed that he had been picketed and had also apologized for material about AIDS that he now calls “ignorant” before adding, on the subject of anxiety by comics today: “All this stuff they are talking about: ‘Hey, welcome to the club.’”

We can also expect Murphy to make plenty of Dad jokes. He’s fathered 10 kids after all.

“I now have a whole lifetime of experiences to draw upon. There was a time when I was at the center of everything, what I was doing, and how funny I was and how popular,” he said. “I’m not at the center. Now my kids are and everything revolves around them.”

Does it sounds like Eddie Murphy is softening up to y’all? We’re excited to see him return to ‘SNL’ and for the standup and for ‘Dolemite’ of course.

Hit the flip for photos from Saturday’s L.A. premiere