Whatever Happened To Eddie Murphy?

He's hinted at retirement for awhile

Although fans may be confused by Murphy's recent absence from the big screen, the superstar comedian has actually been laying the groundwork for retirement for years. Speaking to the Today show in 2008, Murphy, then 47, revealed he even had a target date for his exit. "I'm planning to make movies until I am 50," he said. "That's two years and eight months [from now]. Then I'm going back to the stage."

Since then, Murphy has mostly lived up to his word. His last major star vehicle, Tower Heist, hit theaters a few months after his 50th birthday. He's since appeared in only two other movies: the underwhelming A Thousand Words, in 2012; and the very-low-profile indie Mr. Church, which opened to mostly negative reviews in 2016. Meanwhile, he did a bit of standup for the first time in almost three decades while accepting the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2015.

He's not really interested in Hollywood right now

Speaking of Mr. Church, at the Los Angeles premiere of the movie in September 2016, Murphy told reporters he's pretty content with his life outside the spotlight these days. "My stuff is on TV all the time for anyone checking for it," he said in an interview with Variety. "When do they think they'll hear me say something funny [in the future]? I don't know, because from here, I'm going back to the backyard to chill."

Murphy offered the same sentiment while talking to Rolling Stone a few years prior. "I only want to do what I really want to do, otherwise I'm content to sit here and play my guitar all day," he said in 2011. "I always tell people now that I'm a semiretired gentleman of leisure, and occasionally I'll go do some work to break the boredom up. My whole s revolves around having this peace of mind. It's peaceful, quiet, that's my day-to-day. I play my guitar, hang out with my girl. My kids went to their mom's this week. I'm chilling, no stress. After all these years, I've done well and I'm cool. I feel comfortable in my skin, I've saved some paper, everybody's healthy, my kids are beautiful and smart, doing different things, it's all good. I'm trying to maintain my s like this, and do a fun project every now and then."

He made a whole bunch of flops

Murphy's big-screen career has always been a bit of a roller coaster, from huge hits like Beverly Hills Cop to The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which remains one of Hollywood's biggest bombs. Still, the last decade has been especially unkind to Murphy, thanks to starring roles in a number of back-to-back flops including 2007's Norbit, for which he "won" three Razzie Awards. He followed Norbit with a string of Razzie-nominated turns in films like Meet Dave, Imagine That and A Thousand Words, all of which made his Oscar-nominated comeback in 2006's Dreamgirls feel like a squandered opportunity. Even his biggest hit of the bunch, Tower Heist, underwhelmed, compared to some of Murphy's previous successes.

To his credit, Murphy has become a bit more reflective in recent years, going so far to admit that some of his career choices may not have been pitch-perfect. "The [paycheck] movies are over for me," he told The Washington Post in 2015.

He dropped out of hosting the Oscars

Murphy made headlines in November 2011 when he announced he would no longer be hosting the 84th annual Academy Awards, set to air the following February. His decision didn't exactly come as a surprise; it was announced a day after that Brett Ratner, the director of Tower Heist, had dropped out as the telecast's producer after making anti-gay remarks and discussing his sex life on Howard Stern. Still, Murphy's decision to quit the Oscars didn't sit well with everyone, especially among members of the Academy. "It was a career mistake," one member told The Hollywood Reporter. "What the hell was he thinking?" "This is like a big middle finger to the Academy and to the industry," said another. Of course, considering how tepid his replacement Billy Crystal's reviews turned out to be, perhaps he dodged a bullet after all.

He (briefly) returned to Saturday Night Live

Murphy was one of many famous faces who took part in Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary special in February 2015. But despite his high-profile appearance, Murphy left many fans underwhelmed when he gave what amounted to a barely one-minute speech. What kept him from doing more? According to the Washington Post, SNL wanted him to play Bill Cosby. The idea didn't sit well with Murphy at the time, given that Cosby was facing accusations that he had sexually assaulted dozens upon dozens of women throughout his career. "I totally understood [why SNL wanted to do it]," Murphy said. "It was the biggest thing in the news at the time. I can see why they thought it would be funny, and the sketch that Norm [Macdonald] wrote was hysterical."

"[But the story is] horrible," he continued. "There's nothing funny about it. If you get up there and you crack jokes about him, you're just hurting people. You're hurting him. You're hurting his accusers. I was like, 'Hey, I'm coming back to SNL for the anniversary, I'm not turning my moment on the show into this other thing.'"

Ironically, Murphy wound up impersonating Cosby while accepting his Mark Twain Award that October.

He recently expanded his family

Murphy's preference for being a chill dad over a Hollywood megastar was confirmed in May 2016 when he and his girlfriend, Paige Butcher, welcomed their first child together, Izzy Oona Murphy, according to Entertainment Tonight. Of course, Izzy's birth was hardly a "first" for Murphy; he has eight other children with four other women, including a daughter with former Spice Girl Melanie "Mel B" brown. "She's doing wonderfully," he told Extra of his latest bundle of joy in August 2016. "She started sleeping through the night."

Still, Murphy's commitment to domestic bliss only goes so far. "I don't change diapers," he added. "'Cause I would be horrible at it and that's not fair to the child."

He has a few projects in the works

Although you may not see much of Murphy these days, that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be gone forever. In fact, the actor, now 55, has a number of projects in development, including a role playing Richard Pryor's father in a movie for Lee Daniels and the long-gestating fourth installment in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. Speaking to Ellen DeGeneres about the latter project in 2013, Murphy revealed he and others were still fine-tuning the script.

"We have a script that's kind of pretty much there; [we're trying to] get it perfect," he said. "If we can get the script just right, it's something that we'll do. But this'll be perfect, because I don't wanna do anything else that sucks ever again. I don't wanna suck no more." Something tells us his fans are on the same page.