Eddie Murphy Recalls the Clint Eastwood Moment That Made Him Leave the 2007 Oscars

When Eddie Murphy walked out of the Academy Awards in 2007, the story quickly became that he’d stormed off after losing. Nearly two decades later, the comedian says that version isn’t entirely true.

It turns out, an unexpected interaction with Clint Eastwood is what actually pushed him to leave the award ceremony early.

Murphy, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Dreamgirls, recently revisited the moment while speaking with Entertainment Weekly about his Netflix documentary Being Eddie. He recalls feeling uncomfortable as fellow stars offered condolences after the loss.

“What happened was I was at the Oscars, I had lost, and then people kept coming over to me and kept [patting] me on the shoulder,” the 64-year-old explained. “Clint Eastwood came and rubbed my shoulder. And I was like, oh, no, no, I’m not gonna be this guy all night. Let’s just leave. I didn’t storm out. I was like, I’m not gonna be the sympathy guy all night.”

Looking back, Murphy says awards are unpredictable by nature. “Winning an Oscar is more art than science,” he said. In the Netflix doc, he’s even blunter about awards shows: “The mindf**k for me is that I get dressed and come to the thing… I could have f**king lost at home.”

And the Oscars weren’t the only time Murphy found himself navigating an awkward public moment that followed him for years—a reality fellow comedian David Spade recently revisited while looking back on their own complicated history.

READ MORE: David Spade Admits He’s Spent 25 Years Trying to ‘Win Back’ Fellow Comedy Legend

During an episode of the Fly on the Wall podcast with Dana Carvey, Spade, 61, recalled how a 1995 Saturday Night Livejoke about Vampire in Brooklyn unexpectedly damaged their relationship. “I do love Eddie Murphy, and we had some bumps in the road along the way,” Spade said. “It was weird going from being a super fan to having him hate me overnight, and to try to win him back for the last 25 years… I was on Weekend Update on SNL, new to the show, making fun of all the celebrities and I made fun of him and it didn’t go well. And he called me and we had it out.”

The Joe Dirt star admitted he didn’t push back during that call. “I didn’t really fight back,” he said. “Because I did feel a little guilty about it. And he did make some sense, I just didn’t like that because he was a hero.”Murphy later clarified in Being Eddie that his frustration at the time was directed more at SNL as an institution than at Spade personally. “I was hurt,” Murphy said. “It’s like your alma mater taking a shot at you.”