Eddie Murphy reveals Robin Williams tried to talk him out of Oscars speech criticising lack of Black recognition
Eddie Murphy has reflected on his famous speech at the Oscars in 1988 and revealed Robin Williams attempted to talk him out of it backstage.
During the Academy Awards in 1988, Murphy, whose life and career is the subject of the new Netflix documentary Being Eddie, was tasked with handing out the Oscar for ‘Best Picture’.
Notably, while on stage, Murphy criticised the lack of recognition for Black actors at the Academy Awards while the biggest names in Hollywood watched on.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Murphy recalled, “I remember being with Robin Williams backstage. I was like, ‘I’m gonna say this.’ And he goes to me, like, ‘But why go there?’. I was like, ‘Oh, you don’t think it’s funny?’ It was more, is it funny? Rather than it’s controversial.”
Murphy then added of his intention with the speech, sharing, “I was trying to be funny and say a little something, but be funny too. Have a little edge to what I said.”
He also said he “wasn’t thinking of the ramifications of” his remarks, before explaining, “I was just trying to be funny in the moment and I wanted what I was saying to be relevant.”
In his speech, before he handed the Oscar to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, Murphy told the Academy Awards that he initially rejected the proposal to present when it first came in, stating, “I’m not going because they haven’t recognised Black people in motion pictures.”
After highlighting that Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier and Louis Gossett Jr were the only Black actors to have won an Oscar at that point in time, Murphy said, “I’ll probably never win an Oscar for saying this, but hey, what the hey, I gotta say it. Actually, I might not be in any trouble because the way it’s been going is about every 20 years we get one, so we ain’t due to about 2004. So by that time, this will all be blown over.”
His passionate speech continued, “So I came down here to give the award. I said, ‘But I just feel that we have to be recognised as a people. I just want you to know I’m gonna give this award, but Black people will not ride the caboose of society, and we will not bring up the rear anymore. And I want you to recognise us.”
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