The series of disgusting events that made Eddie Murphy quit as the host of the 2012 Oscars
Hiring a first-time host for the Oscars can be a crapshoot, and many of them have bombed live on stage in front of an audience of their peers and millions of viewers at home, but you get the sneaking suspicion that Eddie Murphy would have knocked it out of the park.
Yes, it would have been the closest thing he’d done to a live comedy special in decades, and he might have been a little rusty, but even in the worst-case scenario, he could have compensated for it through sheer star power, natural charisma, and off-the-cuff improvisation. It’s a what-if scenario, but for the most part, comedians have generally made the best hosts.
Look at Bob Hope, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Steve Martin, and Chris Rock as proof. At the other end of the scale, drafting in an actor without any sort of background in live entertainment can be a disaster, because for every Hugh Jackman, there’s a James Franco, Anne Hathaway, Goldie Hawn, or Paul Hogan to balance the scales.
In September 2011, Murphy was announced to be the frontman of the 2012 edition of the Oscars, reuniting with his Tower Heist director, Brett Ratner, who was confirmed as the producer the previous month. This was before everyone found out that the Rush Hour filmmaker was revealed to be a wrong ‘un, but it wasn’t long before the alarm bells started ringing.
In November, Olivia Munn, one of the six women who’d accuse him of sexual assault and harassment in 2017, described Ratner in her memoir as being “in an oversized shirt, holding his undersized manhood in his hands, glistening with shrimp fat.” In response, he said the two had a brief relationship several years prior, or, as he put it, “I banged her a few times, but I forgot.”
He also said, “She wasn’t Asian back then,” even though Munn’s mother was a Vietnamese refugee who emigrated to the United States.
The same month, when promoting the Murphy-led Tower Heist, Ratner was asked about the movie’s rehearsal process. In response, he offered, “Rehearsal? What’s that? Rehearsals for fags.” Three days later, he apologised for using “a dumb and outdated way of expressing myself,” claiming that he didn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body, but by the end of the same day, he’d dug himself an even deeper hole.
Appearing on Howard Stern’s radio show, Ratner suggested that he’d been intimate with a “really young” Lindsay Lohan, backtracked on his own claims that he’d slept with Munn, called himself “the best in the world” at cunnilingus, and told the host that before he sleeps with any woman, he sends them to his personal doctor so they can be checked for sexually transmitted diseases. Shockingly enough, that would be his last day as the producer of the 84th Oscars.
Ironically, he told Stern, “I’m now the producer of the Oscars, so I really can’t talk about all the sex I got when I was young,” only to announce his resignation 24 hours later after doing just that. The day after, Murphy also bailed, sharing a statement that he was “truly looking forward to being a part of the show,” but no Ratner, no dice, apparently, with Billy Crystal stepping into the void for his ninth hosting gig.
MeToo deservedly left Ratner’s career in tatters, and he hasn’t helmed a feature since 2014’s Hercules, which co-starred Rebecca Ferguson, who aptly summed him up as “a misogynistic pig.” He did return behind the camera for Melania, but everybody knows why, and it’s the same reason why Rush Hour 4 has suddenly gained the most traction it’s had in years.
