It was perhaps the least funny acceptance speech from one of the funniest people who’s ever lived.
For several minutes at Tuesday night’s Golden Globes, Eddie Murphy sincerely thanked his family, collaborators, and others during a staid acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement on the screen. Even during a very funny introduction, he only cracked a smile when Tracy Morgan joked about Murphy’s 10 children by saying, “Your pullout game is weak.”
“I’ve been doing this for a long time so I could literally stand up here and keep saying thank you until they play the piano,” Murphy said once he took the stage. “But I’m going to wrap it up and say something to all the new up-and-coming dreamers and artists that are in the room tonight.” He went on to describe the “definitive blueprint” to “achieve success, prosperity, longevity, and peace of mind.”
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“I followed it my whole career, it’s very simple,” he continued, explaining there are “three things” you need to do, as younger actors like Abbott Elementary’s Tyler James Williams, who won earlier in the night, looked on in awe.
The three things, Murphy concluded, are, “Pay your taxes, mind your business, and keep Will Smith’s wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!”
The end of his sentence was bleeped out on television, but just as on Oscar night last year, there was no denying what he said. And it brought down the house.
