Damon Wayans Sr. Says Eddie Murphy Predicted All the ‘SNL’ Problems That Led to His Firing

Back in the early 1980s, Eddie Murphy straight up saved Saturday Night Live from extinction, but when Damon Wayans Sr. joined the show in 1985, Murphy tried to save him the trouble.

Though Murphy’s four seasons on SNL simultaneously skyrocketed him to superstardom and saved the show from fizzling out in its post-Belushi, post-Radner era, Murphy’s relationship with the comedy institution that owes him its very existence was rocky both during and after his time in the cast. Despite being SNL’s absolute messiah, Murphy had struggles with the nearly all-white SNL writing staff during his meteoric rise, and when a future In Living Color star arrived at 30 Rockefeller Plaza shortly after Murphy left, Murphy advised Wayans to watch his back.

After just a year at SNL, Wayans would publicly force Lorne Michaels to release him from his contract by pulling a mid-sketch stunt that would live in infamy. Wayans recently spoke to the makers of the Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night about his implosion on the show, admitting of Murphy’s prescient warnings, “Everything Eddie said came true.”

Shortly before he landed the SNL gig, Wayans appeared in the Murphy-starred 1984 film Beverly Hills Cop, and Murphy gave his co-star some cautionary words of wisdom about what it’s really like being Black in Studio 8H. “Eddie’s advice to me was, ‘Write your own sketches. Otherwise, they’re gonna give you some Black people shit to do, and you ain’t gonna like it,” Wayans recalled in SNL50.

Wayans tried to follow Murphy’s example and create his own characters, “but they would shoot my ideas down,” he recalled, acknowledging that Murphy was right about the SNL writing staff. “They started writing me in their sketches.” 

As for the kind of roles that SNL wanted Wayans to play, well, Murphy was right about those, too. Wayans recalled receiving a particularly stereotypical assignment and immediately putting his foot down, remembering, “I’m like, ‘Hell no.’ I said, ‘Listen, my mother’s gonna watch this show. I can’t do this. I won’t do this.'”

Then, on March 15, 1986, Wayans snapped. Fed up with having to portray Black stereotypes every Saturday night, Wayans threw the show a curveball. When it came time to perform the “Mr. Monopoly” sketch about a mustachioed Jon Lovitz using a real-life “Get Out of Jail Free” card, Wayans improvised a character quirk for his rough-and-tumble detective role, choosing to play him extremely effeminately without warning. Lorne Michaels fired Wayans on the spot for deliberately breaking SNL’s strict “no improv” rule.

“I snapped. I just did not care," Wayans explained of his decision to tank his SNL career live on air. "I purposefully did that because I wanted (Michaels) to fire me.” Wayans clarified that he has no hard feelings toward the SNL don, and he even returned to host the show nine years after his firing once In Living Color made him and his brothers superstars. “Lorne is a very forgiving man, and I think he just wanted to let me know that he believed in me,” Wayans explained.

And Murphy is a very foresightful man — it's a shame he never warned Wayans never to make a rom-com with Lisa Kudrow.