An Explanation For Eddie Murphy’s Short-Lived Appearance On SNL’s 40th Anniversary Special
Millions of people tuned in Sunday night to watch the 40th Anniversary celebration of Saturday Night Live.
For weeks, this show had been hyped up with announcements of celebrities from SNL past and present...all past guests, cast and hosts were invited back for the special, and one big name many of us were looking forward to, was Eddie Murphy. He was one of the first big names announced and the excitement to see him was there, because it had been over 30 years since his last SNL appearance!
So what happened?
We all waited for him to hit the stage, Chris Rock gave him a glowing introduction, but when he got to the stage, after saying hello and thanking the audience, not much else happened and we all wondered why. There was some speculation that there had been some bad blood between Murphy and Lorne Michaels, and maybe that was why Murphy cut his scene short. I also heard that maybe it was SNL's doing...maybe they only gave him that allotted time? Nope, so far, sounds like neither of those possibilities are correct.
Eddie Murphy was scared to be in front of a live audience.
Screenrant.com covered the story, saying it sounds like Eddie was just scared to perform in front of a live audience.
It's been so long, so that actually makes sense. It's hard for us to understand what it's like for celebrities to get out there and perform, because we're just used to seeing them 'do what they do'. But they are human just like we are, and they get stage fright and anxiety and knots in their stomachs just like we do. It's hard to believe of course, because you're probably thinking 'but it's Eddie Murphy! He's done this a million times!' This is true, but it's been a while and being away from the stage gets harder and harder the more time you take to get back at it. These professionals make it look easy, but really, there's a lot to it and it's a lot harder than it seems to perform in front of a live audience.
A look at Eddie Murphy being human, it sounds like that's all it was...a case of stage fright and it happens to the best of 'em! It's still unfortunate that we didn't get to see him perform, but maybe next time.