Nearing 60, Eddie Murphy has returned to the screen with
The King of Zamunda
, the continuation of the hit comedy from the late eighties that became a cultural phenomenon around the world.
Unlike the applause generated 30 years ago by
The Prince of Zamunda
(
Coming to America
, in its original title), on this occasion the issuance of the new film on Amazon has not convinced critics but has served to bring it back to the fore who has been called "the only black actor in history who has managed to have a worldwide audience."
Far from those successful years now, Murphy went from being an icon in the 1980s and 1990s to a shooting star at the turn of the century.
In addition to the lack of papers to convince the critics, the scandals that the interpreter of big box office such as
Between crooks walks the game
(1983),
Superdetective in Hollywood
(1984) or
The Nutty Professor
(1996) starred in at that time.
His gifts for imitation and his sense of humor opened the doors to him, first of the monologues and later to the interpretation in a universe in which whites reigned.
The jokes about his childhood - he went on to tell how his father, who had abandoned him and his brother as children, was murdered by his lover - the defense of polyamory and his particular way of making humor with women and homosexuals as protagonists of his stories put him in the spotlight on several occasions.
“If you see that I move a lot, it's so that fagots don't look at my ass.
Aunts go out with their queer friends, they give them kisses and then they want to kiss me, spreading AIDS around, ”he said in one of his monologues.
A paternity suit and a sexual harassment lawsuit tainted his public image in the late 1990s, which ended in a muddle when in 1997 he was pulled over in his car with a transsexual in an area of West Hollywood known for the influx of homosexual prostitution.
The actor, who had been married at the time for four years, was released.
It did not end there, he denounced the
National Enquirer
magazine
for preparing a report about his secret sexual life and, finally, the actor ended up reaching a millionaire agreement that prevented publication.
At the same time, his love life has not been without controversy either.
Father of ten children as a result of five different relationships, Murphy has only had qualms when it comes to recognizing Angel Iris as his legitimate daughter, born 13 years ago as a result of a relationship that began with the Spice Girl Mel B in 2006. He assured in several television sets that she was not his daughter and after a DNA test that corroborated the singer's version, in 2010 the actor allowed the girl to meet the rest of her brothers.
Since then, the comedian boasts of his offspring and at Christmas 2018 he posed for the first time with all his children.
The youngest, from his last relationship with Australian model Paige Butcher, are Izzy Oona, four, and Max Charles, two.
His oldest son is Eric, 31, the fruit of his courtship with Paulette McNeely, and who was born the same year as his sister Bria, the first of his five children with his ex-wife Nicole Mitchell, a model with whom he married four. years later.
Within that marriage came Myles, 28, Shayne, 26, Zola, 21, and Bella, 19 and who participates in his latest film with him.
Meanwhile, Murphy had an affair with
casting
director
Tamara Hood, with whom he had 30-year-old Christian.
In addition, he starred in one of the shortest marriages with producer Tracey Edmonds;
They received 2006 full of love, but they did not arrive as a couple beyond February 2007.
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With an estimated fortune of 85 million dollars and with a great fondness for luxury cars, in the professional field, in 2013 he confessed that he hardly received professional offers and that he would not work again until a script that deserved the award arrived. pain.
Six years later, that script was
Yo soy Dolemite
(2019), the Netflix film that the critics and the public agreed again to redeem the actor, who had decided to turn to music.
His decaffeinated premiere now of
The King of Zamunda
has not taken away the star's desire to meet the public again on a monologue tour that the pandemic prevented from performing in 2020 and that he hopes to resume soon.
After a brief return to
Saturday Night Live!
at the end of 2019, the show that gave him a chance in the early eighties.
It seems that Eddie Murphy remains confident that going back to the roots is always a good option.