Eddie Murphy vs Bill Cosby: Inside the bitterest feud in comedy history

Eddie Murphy’s return as wisecracking cop Axel Foley in his new film Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, now on Netflix, arrives with high expectations. Murphy hasn’t had a hit since 2011’s Tower Heist, and has concentrated his efforts on streaming platforms over the past few years, releasing so-so films such as 2021’s Coming 2 America and the 2023 Christmas film Candy Cane Lane. His last film to have a cinematic release, 2016’s Mr Church, made an unimpressive $685,000 at the box office. But Murphy’s inimitable blend of profane comedy and – even at the age of 63 – explosive stunts is once again proving a hit with audiences.

There is one 86-year old retired actor and comedian, though, who is unlikely to be excited about a new Beverly Hills Cop picture: Bill Cosby. The figure once fondly known as “America’s Dad” saw his career blaze out after multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault were brought against him. He was subject to multiple civil and criminal cases, imprisoned for three years and has not worked since 2014. Yet long before his name became synonymous with appalling behaviour, Cosby and Murphy engaged in one of Hollywood’s bitterest and most enduring feuds.

In September 2018, the photographer Jeff Kravitz put a picture on Instagram that he had taken in 1989 of a softball game, which included five of the biggest African-American actors and comedians of the 20th century, namely Redd Foxx, Murphy, Sidney Poitier, Cosby and Richard Pryor. It was an unexpected gathering, not least because Murphy and Cosby had not been on speaking terms for a considerable time. However, Poitier – one of the great diplomats of Hollywood – prevailed on the men to come together, under the auspices of celebrating two pictures that they were then about to release: Poitier’s Ghost Dad, which starred Cosby, and Murphy’s directorial debut Harlem Nights, which featured Pryor and Foxx.

If the game was intended to bring harmony where there was discord, it was unsuccessful. Kravitz recalled, “I went down there wanting to get Eddie and Bill together since Eddie slammed him so hard in his stand up. This was the closest I could get them all day. They did this for charity and didn’t care for each other.”

Looking at the photo today, this was a heroic understatement. Murphy is staring into the camera, deadpan cool in shades. Cosby is turned away from him, with the expression of someone who wants a horrible experience to be over with as quickly as possible, while Poitier stands between them as a beaming peacemaker, trying to bring two of the great stars of African-American comedy together. Yet even his impressive skills could not reconcile the loathing between the two, which had first begun in 1986.

Back then, Murphy was flying high, thanks to the success of his stand-up, which included a well-received stint on Saturday Night Live and the 1983 live film Delirious, as well as such box office hits as Trading Places, 48 Hrs and the first Beverly Hills Cop film, released in 1984. The latter, especially, established the actor as a box office draw in his own right, after he took over the role of Axel Foley from Sylvester Stallone, who had developed the picture and wished to play the part as a hard-edged dramatic role. Murphy, though, gave it a more comedic spin while managing to continue to offer the action-packed capering that audiences wanted. Beverly Hills Cop became 1984’s biggest box office hit, earning $234 million at the box office, and made Murphy the biggest African-American star in the world.

His success was largely welcomed by his peers, but he was surprised, a couple of years later, to receive a call from Cosby, in which the older man berated him for his expletive-riddled humour in his shows. Murphy recounted the incident in his 1987 stand-up show Raw, in which he described himself as “a big fan” of Cosby, but also said that “[I] never met the man, but he called me up about a year ago and chastised me on the phone about being too dirty on the stage. It was real weird because I had never met him and he just thought he should call me up, because he was Bill, and tell me that that isn’t what comedy is all about. I sat and listened to this man chastise me, and when Bill Cosby chastises you, you forget you’re grown, you feel like one of the Cosby kids.”

Murphy then goes on to imagine Cosby’s son being interrogated by his father. Cosby Jr describes how Murphy launched into a creative range of obscenities. This leads Murphy to ventriloquise the father saying indignantly, “You cannot say filth, flying filth to people”. Murphy responds, “I don’t say filth, flying filth, f___ you”.

Cosby then, in Murphy’s telling, says outraged, “You cannot say f___ in front of people!”, only for Murphy to point out that creative obscenity was the whole point of his act. The skit builds to a fine resolution when Murphy, hurt and irritated by the conversation, telephones his future Harlem Nights co-star Pryor, who replies “The next time that motherf____ calls, tell him to suck my d___”, before suggesting that Cosby should have a “Coke and a smile and shut the f___ up.”

This was hilariously delivered. But clearly it rankled with Cosby, whose contemporary sitcom The Cosby Show was the most popular comedy show of the decade, and was notable for its presentation of the lives of an affluent, middle-class black family – a conscious attempt to move away from stereotypical depictions of violent, promiscuous or drug-ridden African-American culture.

Murphy, meanwhile, was the son of a single mother, whose father was stabbed to death when he was eight. He came from a different world to Cosby, a former keen sportsman and naval petty officer, and the animosity between the two of them was genuine. As Murphy later said to Jerry Seinfeld, when he appeared in the latter’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, “[Cosby] had a weird thing with me that he didn’t have with other comics. It was mean. He wasn’t nice. He wasn’t doing that with everybody, he was doing that with me specifically. He was sh–ty with me.”

After the uniquely awkward picture of the two men was taken by Kravitz, both of their films underperformed. Although Harlem Nights was a minor financial success, doubling its $30 million budget, it received dreadful reviews and led Murphy to say “I just wanted to direct – just to see if I can do it. And I found out that I can’t, and I won’t do it anymore.”

Ghost Dad, meanwhile, was both a critical and commercial flop, with the critic Roger Ebert calling it “a desperately unfunny film. Who ever thought [it] was a good idea?” Murphy and Cosby could have buried the hatchet, and commiserated over their shared ill fortune, but while Murphy’s career soon rebounded, Cosby never again had a leading role in cinema. His next major series, Cosby, an American remake of One Foot in the Grave, was successful enough, running to four seasons and 96 episodes, but it did not receive anything like the popularity of The Cosby Show.

And there the feud might have ended, had it not been for Cosby’s conviction and subsequent disgrace. Murphy continued to take public potshots at his nemesis, remarking in 2015 when he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour that “Bill has one of these. Did you all make Bill give his back? You know you f_____ up when they want you to give your trophies back.”

Interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel the year afterwards, Murphy revealed that he had not heard from an irate Cosby, but also stated that “I’m not frightened of Bill.” Four years later, he took another dig at Cosby, by now in prison, during a SNL monologue, in which he said “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.” He concluded, referencing his own 10 children, “Who’s America’s Dad now?”

This, however, was too much for Cosby, who shot back, via his spokesman Andrew Wyatt, that “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”, an allusion to his return to SNL after three decades. Wyatt continued: “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 click bait. Hopefully, you will be amenable to having a meeting of the minds conversation.”

Cosby was released from prison in 2021; as far as we know, no conversation has taken place.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is on Netflix now

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