Eddie Murphy says Michael Jackson was so shy he would hide from celebrities.
Eddie Murphy says Michael Jackson was so shy he would hide from celebrities
The 61-year-old comic was a long-time friend of Michael’s and rose to fame doing impressions of the singer on ‘Saturday Night Live’, but the King of Pop was nowhere near as outgoing as the actor and Eddie said he got so overwhelmed with nerves at a movie night in the home of Rat Pack star Sammy Davis Jr he hid behind a door.
Eddie told ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Wednesday (25.01.23) about the party in the 1980s when Sammy screened 1985 alien comedy ‘Cocoon’: “It was too many people in the room. He was hiding behind the door. He said, ‘Eddie, come!’”
The ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ actor added when he went across to Michael – who was killed by a heart attack caused by a tranquiliser overdose at his home aged 50 on 25 June 2009 – he asked the ‘Bad’ singer: “What the f***, yo?”
He then imitated Michael to tell Jimmy the ‘Thriller’ performer replied: “It’s so many people in there!”
Eddie added his ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketches about Michael, which he did years before the singer was accused of child molestation, were never “mean-spirited” as “I knew him”.
The pair’s work together included a collaboration on the 1993 R and B single ‘Whatzupwitu’.
Eddie appeared on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ to promote his new film ‘You People’, which charts a relationship between a white Jewish man and black Muslim woman and the tensions it creates in their families.
Jonah Hill plays the male lead Ezra, while Lauren London is his partner Amira, with Eddie and Nia Long playing her parents opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny as Ezra’s mum and dad.
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