Bill Cosby’s rep did not appreciate Eddie Murphy’s joke about the disgraced comedian during his highly celebrated return to “Saturday Night Live” on Dec. 21, 2019.
During his opening monologue, Murphy told a joke that described how his and Cosby’s circumstances had changed over the past 30 years. In the 1980s, Murphy was considered an unfiltered comedian while Cosby was known as “America’s dad” in his role as Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.”
Cosby is now serving time in prison, and Murphy is now the father of 10.
“If you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring, stay-at-home … house dad and Bill Cosby would be in jail, even I would have took that bet,” Murphy joked during his monologue on “SNL.”
In a statement released on Instagram and Twitter on Sunday, De.c 22, Cosby’s spokesman Andrew Wyatt said Cosby “broke color barriers in the Entertainment Industry” so that Murphy and comedians like Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart could perform.
“One would think that Mr. Murphy was given his freedom to leave the plantation so that he could make his own decisions, but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood Slave,” the statement read. “Remember, Mr. Murphy, that Bill Cosby became legendary because he used comedy to humanize all races, religions, and genders; but your attacking Mr. Cosby helps you embark on just becoming clickbait,” Wyatt continued. “Hopefully, you will be amenable to having a meeting of the minds conversation in order to discuss how we can use our collective platforms to enhance Black people rather than bringing all of us down together.”
Murphy has yet to respond.
