Eddie Murphy turned down coke with Robin Williams and John Belushi: 'No, I'm cool'

Getting famous at a young age comes with a lot of potential dangers, and Eddie Murphy was only 19 when he first joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1980. In a new interview with The New York Times, Murphy looked back at the temptation of drugs in particular when he was a rising star — and how thankful he is to have not gone down that road.

"I remember I was 19, I went to the Blues Bar," Murphy said, referring to the once-iconic Manhattan establishment run by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. "It was me, Belushi, and Robin Williams. They start doing coke, and I was like, 'No, I’m cool.' I wasn’t taking some moral stance. I just wasn’t interested in it. To not have the desire or the curiosity, I’d say that’s providence. God was looking over me in that moment." 

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It's not even a specific aversion to cocaine on Murphy's part. The iconic comedian and actor, who will soon be returning to one of his most famous roles in Netflix's upcoming film Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, simply wanted to avoid the potential danger of drugs. As a young Black star who was responsible for saving SNL from near-cancellation and then subsequently became a hugely profitable movie star thanks to hits like the original Beverly Hills Cop, Murphy had enough to worry about as it was.

"When you get famous really young, especially a Black artist, it’s like living in a minefield," Murphy said. "Any moment something could happen that can undo everything. It was like, all of this stuff is going on, and I’m totally oblivious. Now, at this age, I can look back and be like, 'Wow, I came through a minefield for 35 years.'”

Though Murphy attributes his good luck to a higher power, it's also clear he was paying attention to the world around him as a young man. Murphy tells the Times that Elvis Presley was one of his role models, and that the leather jumpsuits he famously wore in his '80s standup specials Raw and Delirious were inspired by the King of Rock n' Roll. The role of drugs in Presley's 1977 death (not to mention Belushi, who died of an overdose only a year or two after Murphy declined to do coke with him) was not lost on the actor.

"Those guys are all cautionary tales for me," Murphy said. "I don’t drink. I smoked a joint for the first time when I was 30 years old — the extent of drugs is some weed.

Read (or listen to) the full interview at the New York Times.