Eddie Murphy Says Some of His Old Jokes Were 'Ignorant' in Hindsight

"I was a young guy processing a broken heart, you know, kind of an asshole," he said of his star-making standup show Raw. "I now have a whole lifetime of experiences to draw upon."

In the profile, he "describes himself now as a completely different person than he was back then" and refers to old jokes about AIDS as "ignorant." At a time when comedians are mocking cancel culture and the #MeToo movement and doubling down on jokes that are deemed offensive , it's refreshing to hear a comic move with the times and distance himself from jokes that don't hold up under a modern lens.

Murphy's willingness to learn and acknowledge fault in his older material came up during a recent conversation between Andy Cohen and actor Tituss Burgess, who also appears in Dolemite Is My Name. While interviewing Burgess on Watch What Happens Live, Cohen asked: "I was just wondering if you got close at all, because he was very problematic for the gays at one point," to which Burgess simply replied: "He wasnt problematic for Tituss." He said that Murphy "loved" him, and another guest on the show, trans actress Laverne Cox, added: "It was a long time ago, people can evolve."

"I'm mushier than I used to be," Murphy said in the article. "There was a time when I was at the center of everything, what I was doing, and how funny I was and how popularIm not at the center. Now my kids are and everything revolves around them."