When Eddie Murphy trolled Bill Cosby on ‘SNL‘ this past weekend, people probably suspected the convicted sex criminal would respond.
MORE: Eddie Murphy Was ‘Cooning’ On SNL ‘Plantation,’ Bill Cosby’s Rep Says
That was because Murphy — who triumphantly returned to his sketch comedy roots to host the show on Saturday night — joked that it was he who now enjoys the nickname of “America’s Dad” and no longer Cosby, who is serving a three-to-10-year prison sentence for aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004.
Cosby apparently refuses to give up what was once his coveted nickname and clearly didn’t enjoy the truth in Murphy’s ironic punchline that provided one of the several highlights of his hosting duties. That much was apparent after his rep published a scathing statement on Cosby’s Instagram that compared Murphy to a “slave” and said he was “cooning” on what he called SNL’s “plantation.”
The statement was rife with negative racial imagery that attempted to question Murphy’s Blackness.
“Mr. Cosby became the first Black to win an Emmy for his role in I Spy and Mr. Cosby broke color barriers in the Entertainment Industry, so that Blacks like Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappell, Kevin Hart and et al., could have an opportunity to showcase their talents for many generations to come. It is sad that Mr. Murphy would take this glorious moment of returning to SNL and make disparaging remarks against Mr. Cosby. 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,” Cosby’s rep, Andrew Wyatt said in the statement before continuing.
“Stepin Fetchit plus cooning equals the destruction of Black Men in Hollywood.
Phew!
Murphy and Cosby’s beef goes back decades to the 1980s when the two first began exchanging barbs over the SNL alum’s dirty jokes. That led to Murphy’s legendary imitation of Cosby that was featured in the blockbuster stand-up comedy movie, “Raw.”
Murphy had not responded as of late Monday morning, but what seemed like the entire internet spoke up on the comedian’s behalf in an effort that made his name the top trending topic on Twitter with tens of thousands of tweets.
Cosby has made sure he and his team keep his name relevant — for better and especially for worse — since his incarceration last year for aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. It was only last month when Cosby granted his first prison interview to the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s BlackPressUSA.com.
But this time seems to have really backfired. Scroll down to see some of the more animated examples of tweets defending Eddie Murphy from Bill Cosby’s rep’s color commentary.