Eddie Murphy Reconsidered Stand-Up Comedy Thanks To Obama

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Eddie Murphy hasn’t done a stand-up comedy special since the late 1980’s, so fans were thrilled when he announced he wanted to hit the road for a stand-up comedy tour. The Shrek actor revealed that former President Barack Obama is the one who encouraged him to return to the stage. During a sitdown on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he said Obama asked him about it when he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize at the White House.

“Obama, yeah, when I got this Mark Twain Prize [and] I saw him in the White House, the first thing he asked me was, ‘When are you going to do standup again?’” Murphy said.  “And I said, ‘Maybe it’s time to do standup again.’”

During a visit to the Present Company podcast, the 51-year-old said he plans to go on a comedy tour next year. Nothing has been finalized but Murphy seems ready to get back to his stand-up comedy roots. Murphy was also offered $70 million from streaming giant Netflix for a series of comedy shows, so hopefully a stand-up special will be in the lineup.

Murphy said his jokes won’t be as raunchy as they were in his first two specials, Raw and Delirious.

“I was a young guy processing a broken heart, you know, kind of an a**hole,” he told the New York Times earlier this year. “I’m mushier than I used to be.”

His latest project, Dolemite Is My Name, is currently available on Netflix.

Murphy, who is a Saturday Night Live alum, will be returning as a host for the first time since his departure 35 years ago in December.