{"id":76018,"date":"2025-08-12T01:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T01:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/76018\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T01:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T01:37:07","slug":"eddie-murphy-defends-his-controversial-movie-nearly-2-decades-after-its-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/76018\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Murphy Defends His Controversial Movie Nearly 2 Decades After Its Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eddie Murphy Defends His Controversial Movie Nearly 2 Decades After Its Premiere\u00a0<\/a> originally appeared on Parade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Actor and comedian Eddie Murphy<\/a>is defending his highly criticized 2007 film, Norbit.<\/p>\n

Entertainment Weekly<\/a> reported Murphy said he still has a fondness for Norbit, which he co-wrote with his late brother Charlie Murphy, during an August 2025 interview on 360 With Speedy<\/a>, hosted by Complex’s Speedy Morman. In addition, he noted that he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as James (Jimmy) “Thunder” Early in the 2006 musical film, Dreamgirls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love\u00a0Norbit. Norbit\u00a0came out right after I got that Oscar nomination. There were articles like, \u2018How can he get an Oscar, he did this?\u2019 They\u2019re two different movies,” said the 64-year-old in the interview. “I wrote\u00a0Norbit\u00a0with my brother, Charlie, and we think\u00a0Norbit\u00a0is funny. It came out and they gave me a Razzie Awards for worst actress, worst actor, and worst actor of the decade. And I was like, \u2018Come on now, s— ain\u2019t that bad.\u2019 They was just hatin’ on me.”<\/p>\n

He also said he still finds humor in Norbit, wherein he played the characters, Norbit Albert Rice, Rasputia Latimore, and Mr. Wong.<\/p>\n

“To this day, I like\u00a0Norbit. There\u2019s stuff in\u00a0Norbit\u00a0that makes me laugh,” said Murphy during the August 2025 interview.<\/p>\n

He also said he thinks his movies, Pluto Nash and Holy Man, are worse than Norbit.<\/p>\n

According to Entertainment Weekly, Norbit focuses on the titular character who is bullied by his wife, Rasputia, and wants to pursue a romantic relationship with his childhood friend, Kate Thomas (Thandie Newton<\/a>). In a 2007 interview with Ron’s World<\/a>, Murphy suggested he wasn’t concerned about those offended by his choice to wear a padded suit and prosthetics to play Rasputia.<\/p>\n

In addition, he compared the story of Norbit to the classic fairytale, Cinderella.<\/p>\n

“The core of our story is Cinderella. [Rasputia is] his wife, but she’s like the evil stepsister. This is not real people. It’s old story stuff,” said Murphy in the 2007 interview.<\/p>\n

In addition, Murphy suggested he didn’t get accolades from critics until he decided to take on more serious roles, like Jimmy in Dreamgirls.<\/p>\n

“I got a [Oscar] nomination for stepping outside myself. I didn’t think I would ever [get nominated for an Oscar]. In The Nutty Professor, I played six people, seven people in the movie. But because it’s a comedy. They don’t look at how funny it is. You have to step outside of it for them to notice you,” said Murphy.<\/p>\n

Eddie Murphy Defends His Controversial Movie Nearly 2 Decades After Its Premiere\u00a0<\/a> first appeared on Parade on Aug 11, 2025<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Aug 11, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eddie Murphy Defends His Controversial Movie Nearly 2 Decades After Its Premiere\u00a0 originally appeared on Parade. Actor and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,53902,35732,88,53904,53905,53903,52235],"class_list":{"0":"post-76018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-charlie-murphy","10":"tag-eddie-murphy","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-oscar-nomination","13":"tag-pluto-nash","14":"tag-rasputia-latimore","15":"tag-speedy-morman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}