Eddie Murphy might be one of the biggest comedians in the world, however, his childhood was far from a laughable moment. The comedian and “Coming to America” star’s upbringing was marked by stints in foster care, instability, and tragedy, including the murder of his biological father.
Charles Edward Murphy’s life came to a tragic end when Eddie was 8 and his older brother Charlie was 10. A policeman by profession and an aspiring comedian by passion, his father’s life tragically ended when he was allegedly stabbed to death by a woman.
Born on Oct. 30, 1940, in Brooklyn, New York, to Rosa and Henry Roosevelt Murphy, Charles Edward was one of six children.
An obituary recounts a fortuneteller’s prediction to his mother in the early 1940s, claiming someone in her family would become a world-famous entertainer. All of her children, Henry Roosevelt, William Leroy, James Earl, Virginia Mae, Raymond “Ray” Leon, and Charles Edward wondered if it would be them and started dabbling in the show business, becoming amateur singers, actors, and comedians. Charles Edward, specifically, pursued acting and comedy on weekends, following his police shifts.
Still, the prophecy would not come true in his life. It resonated with his children, including Eddie and Charlie, who inherited their father’s comedic talents and became stars after his death when he was only 28 years old.
Charles Edward was once married to their mother, a telephone operator Lillian Laney Murphy, before divorcing her when Eddie was 3. Eddie said he didn’t remember much about him during a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone.
“My mother and father broke up when I was 3, and he died when I was 8, so I have very dim memories. Every now and then, I wonder what it would be like if he was still here,” he said.
I was watching Eddie Murphy's Raw for the millionth time this weekend and the whole pretending to be his dad thing kills me every time.
— Dade-Rautha (@Hozay_) January 22, 2024
BRRRRIIIIIING! BRRRRRIIIIING!
Lillian! Get my pistol.
🎶 If I have to beg and plead…to the symphony 🎶
But I REFUSE to let you go, Lillian
Times were tough for the family financially after Charles Edwards died. It became even more dire after Lillian was hospitalized for some time and could not provide for her children. Both his sons would find themselves in foster care for a year.
Eddie also talked about how his father was killed, and how people thought it colored his opinion of women.
“He was a victim of the Murphy charm ‘chuckles,’” the “Beverly Hills Cop” star continued. “A woman stabbed my father. I never got all the logistics. It was supposed to be one of those crimes of passion: ‘If I can’t have you, then no one else will’ kind of deal.”
“Someone said to me one day, ‘That’s why you don’t trust women.’ Get the f-ck outta here. What are you, a f—king psychiatrist?” he told the outlet. “I don’t think the two have anything to do with each other.”
Adding, “But I was really f—ked up about his death. It was really traumatic.”
In 1986, the National Enquirer published an article about how devastated Eddie was as a result of his father’s murder with the headline, “Eddie Murphy Haunted By Dad’s Brutal Murder — He’s Afraid He’ll Die The Same Horrible Death.”
Eddie was upset about the article and its mischaracterizations about the then-young star and his family. So, he and his lawyer, Leonard Marks, filed a lawsuit that stated, the tabloid “wove a totally false and defamatory article … in order to sell more copies of the magazine.”
“While it is true that his father was murdered in 1969, the rest of the alleged ‘facts’ in the story are totally false,” his lawyer stated.
Marks contended that the article, along with its cover and headline, unjustly depicted his client, Eddie, as paranoid, juvenile, insecure, and mentally unstable.
Because of the article, the lawyer said Eddie “suffered injury to his reputation, exposure to public ridicule and contempt, distress, humiliation, shame, mortification, hurt feelings, and other damages to be proven at trial,” and wanted $60 million in damages. Murphy would subsequently drop the lawsuit.
Despite Charles Edward not being in his life, Eddie said he did have a father figure in his life.
“My father’s brothers are around, though,” he explained, adding, “I do have two fathers. My father that’s alive [Vernon Lynch], he raised me.”
Vernon Lynch, who married Lillian when the “Boomerang” actor was 9, raised him, his brother Charlie, and his own son Vernon Lynch, Jr. He would die in 2001 at the age of 68. He and Eddie had a great relationship, even serving as Eddie’s best man when he married Nicole Mitchell Murphy in 1993.
