Eddie Murphy breaks down his complicated Saturday Night Live history and Hollywood journey in Being Eddie

In the new Netflix documentary Being Eddie, released on November 12, 2025, Eddie Murphy reflects on his early rise on Saturday Night Live, the long-running tension that kept him away from the program for decades, and the wider arc of his Hollywood career.

Murphy looks back on starting at Saturday Night Live when he was only 19, then dealing with stardom, tough breaks, yet eventually making peace - publicly - with the program that turned him into a star.

The film puts Saturday Night Live at the center, while Murphy looks back on key moments - some exciting, some tough - that defined his career.

Inside Eddie Murphy’s turbulent history with Saturday Night Live

Murphy’s tenure on Saturday Night Live between 1980 and 1984 is presented as the foundation of his success.

Being Eddie revisits his breakout characters — from Mr. Robinson to Buckwheat — and highlights how much of the material was being created by a teenager learning the industry in real time.

Murphy recalls how television shaped him from childhood, saying, 

“As a kid, I’d get a blanket, go throw it over the dining room table, so it was hanging down like a tent, put the TV under there, and I’d watch all day long.”

As the documentary moves through his early career, Murphy remembers the transition from live sketch comedy to film.

He discusses the box-office momentum of titles like 48 Hrs., Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop, followed by the misfires that rattled his confidence.

He admits that Vampire in Brooklyn “got me a little off-track,” one of several moments where he critically reexamines his Hollywood choices.

But the documentary spends significant time on what became one of the defining rifts of Murphy’s relationship with Saturday Night Live: the David Spade joke that aired in 1995.

Spade pointed to an image of Murphy during a “Hollywood Minute” segment and said, 

“Look, children, it’s a falling star. Make a wish.”

Murphy recalls his reaction clearly,

“I was hurt.” He adds, “It’s like your alma mater taking a shot at you.”

Murphy explains in Being Eddie that the joke had passed all internal approvals on the show:

“The joke had went through all of those channels that a joke has to go through. That’s what y’all think of me? … And that’s why I didn’t go back for years.”

The film underscores how deeply the moment affected him, becoming the primary reason he avoided Saturday Night Live for decades.

Murphy eventually returned to host Saturday Night Live in 2019, choosing to close the chapter publicly. As he puts it, 

“That little friction that I had with ‘SNL’ was 35 years ago. I don’t have no smoke with no David Spade. It was like, ‘Hey, let me go to ‘SNL’ and smooth that all out.’ And I did.”

Throughout Being Eddie, Saturday Night Live is referenced repeatedly as Murphy reflects on the pressures he faced at such a young age.

In one of the documentary’s most revealing moments, he says, 

“I had to navigate that minefield … If you’re young, they put the whole world at your feet and say, ‘You could have everything, you could do anything, you could go out with any chick, you could go anywhere.’ That f**** most people up.”

In discussing his return to Saturday Night Live, Murphy offers one of the documentary’s most direct reflections on his legacy:

“I was like, you know what? F*** this. SNL is part of my history. I need to reconnect with that show because that’s where I come from.”

The final stretch of Being Eddie looks ahead at Murphy’s current commitments, including new film projects and ongoing creative collaborations..

Stay tuned for more updates.