Eddie Murphy Didn’t Ditch Oscars After Dreamgirls Loss Because He Was Mad — But It Was Because He Lost

It had been a heady awards season for the actor and comedian in which he’d already picked up a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Golden Globe on his way to the Oscars, where he was considered a favorite, for his role as James “Thunder” Early in Dreamgirls.

After his category was announced, with Alan Arkin taking the win for Little Miss Sunshine, there was an Eddie Murphy-sized hole in the audience for the remainder of the show. The quick assumption, that has followed him for years, is that he left because he was bitter or upset at his loss.

His absence was notable as co-star Jennifer Hudson would later win her first Oscar, and he wasn’t on hand for the performances of Dreamgirls‘ three Best Original Song nominees.

While his swift exit was related to the loss, Murphy explained in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly that it wasn’t because of how he felt over not winning what would have been his first-ever Oscar — but rather how his peers were feeling.

“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,” He told the outlet while promoting his Netflix documentary Being Eddie. “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.”

Murphy even said he wasn’t surprised to see Arkin walk away with the win. Before nominations were even announced, the actor said he saw the film six months before it was released with Jeffrey Katzenberg and immediately told the film producer, “Now that performance right there is one of those performances that will steal somebody’s Oscar.”

“I said those exact words. I was like, ‘He could steal somebody’s Oscar,'” Murphy recalled, adding, “then he stole mine.” He then laughed and clarified he was just joking, that he doesn’t really feel Arkin stole his Oscar.

He went on to explain that there’s a science to winning an Oscar. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, you do this, and you do that, and you win the Oscar,'” he said. “No, it’s all this intangible stuff that comes with winning: campaigning and your past stuff and what do they owe you and s–t. All of that stuff comes into play when you get Oscars.”

“When you add all of that stuff into it, he totally deserves his Oscar for his whole career,” Murphy said of Arkin. “He’s an amazing actor.”

While he didn’t walk out of the Oscars mad, Murphy did admit in Being Eddie that he’s not a huge fan of getting all dressed up to attend an awards ceremony if you’re not going to win. “Whenever I lose, I’m like, ‘These motherf–kers made me come all the way down. I could have f–king lost at home. I’m all in the f–king tuxedo. What a waste of time.”

It’s clearly a sentiment he’s been holding a long time as Murphy made similar comments at the 1988 Oscars where he was on hand to present the award for Best Picture. Ahead of stirring comments about the dearth of Black acting winners to that point; a trend which would continue through and beyond the “Oscars So White” controversy of 2015, a year which saw zero non-white acting nominees.

Prior to his pointed comments about race, Murphy took a moment to ask for a round of applause for both the winners and the losers, saying that the losers probably felt “stupid” now because they’d gotten all dressed up for this. “For the losers, we gotta make ’em feel good,” he said.

Being Eddie is streaming now on Netflix.