Eddie Murphy's four decades of dating drama: From Whitney Houston to a transgender prostitute scandal, a Spice Girl romance and fathering 10 children, how the actor's romantic history is juicer than even the most colourful Hollywood script
- Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.com
Eddie Murphy may have had a Hollywood career spanning forty years, but away from the silver screen the actor has lived a life worthy of a blockbuster script.
His movie comeback is in full swing with the release of the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film this month, and Eddie, 63, is in a very different place offscreen compared to those heady days of the eighties when the franchise debuted.
Nowadays he is focused on family - his ten children and fiancee Paige Butcher, 45, calling them 'the centre of everything.'
MailOnline takes a look back at the funnyman's four decades of dating drama...
Eddie Murphy may have had a Hollywood career spanning forty years but away from the silver screen the actor has lived a life worthy of a blockbuster script (pictured with fiancee Paige Butcher)
In the eighties Eddie, 63, was riding the fame game after SNL and then Coming To America catapulted him into superstar celebrity status and a romance with Whitney Houston (pictured together in 1989)
Just as he was catapulted to superstar celebrity status after Saturday Night Live spawned his movie career, Eddie sparked romance rumours with another icon of the moment - Whitney Houston.
The music legend pursued a relationship with the comedian in the mid-1980s. Her friend Ellen White recalled that such was her obsession with Eddie, Whitney made her friends watch his film Coming To America repeatedly.
According to another pal of the singer's, Robyn Crawford, the two were infatuated with one another just as Whitney was getting serious with Bobby Brown.
Robyn recalls how Whitney even received a phone call from Eddie on the morning of her wedding 'to say she was making a mistake.'
After Whitney went through with that wedding, Eddie moved on with Paulette McNeely in 1989. Though little is known about their relationship, the couple welcomed their only child together, a son named Eric, now 34.
The 1989 birth of Eric though came just months before Eddie welcomed a child with his wife Nicole Murphy.
In between meeting Nicole at an awards do in 1988 and marrying her in a Plaza Hotel ceremony in 1993, Eddie also fathered a child with Tamara Hood, a son, Christian, who was born in November 1990.
Nicole is Eddie' most enduring relationship to date, with the marriage lasting 13 years, and seeing the birth of five children - Bria, 34, Myles, 31, Shayne, 29, Zola, 24, and Bella, 21.
His movie comeback is in full swing with the release of the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film this month, and Eddie's in a very different place offscreen compared to those heady days of the eighties (pictured left in the 1984 first movie, and right in 2024's fourth installment)
Such was her obsession with Eddie, Whitney made her friends watch his film Coming To America repeatedly (pictured in 1989)
His marriage to Nicole Murphy is Eddie' most enduring relationship to date, with the marriage lasting 13 years, and seeing the birth of five children - Bria, 34, Myles, 31, Shayne, 29, Zola, 24, and Bella, 21 (pictured in 2005)
Marriage didn't mean the scandals disappeared though. In 1997, Eddie became a late-night talk show punch-line after undercover cops pulled him over for picking up a transgender prostitute.
The actor insisted he was just being a good Samaritan by offering 20-year-old Atisone Seiuli a ride home, telling People Magazine at the time that 'is an act of kindness that got turned into a f***ing horror show.'
Eddie, who was not charged with a crime, added: 'I'm never giving anyone a lift again.'
Nicole forgave her husband but the marriage ended nine years later with a $15million divorce settlement.
The former couple have not commented publicly on what led to their split, but in August 2012, Nicole said that the two managed to rebuild a good relationship post split.
'Eddie and I are friends,' Nicole told Radar Online. 'He's my babies' daddy so we speak to each other and have a great relationship and I think that's important when you have children involved. We can be in the same room and hang out, it's all good!'
Three years after his divorce, Eddie began another high profile romance, with Spice Girl Mel B.
Marriage didn't mean the scandals disappeared though. In 1997, Eddie became a late-night talk show punch-line after undercover cops pulled him over for picking up a transvestite prostitute (pictured with Nicole in 1996)
Marriage didn't mean the scandals disappeared though. In 1997, Eddie became a late-night talk show punch-line after undercover cops pulled him over for picking up a transgender prostitute - Atisone Seiuli
The British star famously called the US funnyman 'the love of my life,' but the whirlwind nine month romance hit the headlines for its bitter and sudden end.
Mel and Eddie first met at a party at his Beverly Hills mansion in 2006. According to the Wannabe hitmaker he had planned a 'massive dinner party' to meet her and after initial first date nerves, the pair hit it off with talks of tying of the knot within months of dating.
She said things turned sour after she got pregnant with their daughter Angel, 17, and she fled to Leeds in the hope Eddie would follow her to win her back.
But the actor told a journalist in a TV interview he questioned if he was the father of Mel's unborn baby, infamously commenting: 'You're being presumptuous, because we're not together any more and I don't know whose child that is until it comes out and has a blood test. You shouldn't jump to conclusions, sir.'
With the benefit of hindsight, the artist formerly known as Scary Spice says she was probably just too big a star to make it work. 'You know, he's Eddie Murphy. And I'm like: 'Well, I'm Mel B!'' she mused in a 2021 interview.
'If something doesn't feel right, if it isn't equal, then what's the point? Yes, Eddie Murphy's a massive star. In my eyes — Spice Girls — so am I.
Three years after his divorce, Eddie began another high profile romance, with Spice Girl Mel B, fathering a daughter Angel with the Spice Girl (pictured in 2006)
Eddie and Mel's relationship ended in December 2006, and by the time Angel was born in April of the following year Eddie was engaged to film producers Tracey Edmonds (pictured in 2007)
In 2012 Eddie started dating Australian model Paige Butcher, who is 18 years his junior. The pair got engaged in 2018 are share two kids together: Izzy, eight, and Max, five (pictured in 2024)
'I have my own house, my own car, my own credit card. I don't need to fall in line and be Pretty Woman, because I have my own life.
'He almost wanted to just go like that. But I have a career. I'm not just going to give that up for love... to be a housewife. There's nothing wrong with being a housewife,' she added quickly.
Mel previously wrote about her and Eddie's relationship in her 2018 memoir Brutally Honest, revealing how things changed when Eddie asked her and her daughter Phoenix to move in with him in LA.
Mel called her life in his home 'a gilded cage', claiming that Eddie did not want her to leave the house, even for coffee, saying that someone could fetch it, and was a 'germ freak' paranoid about security.
At night, she claimed, he had a routine of going round his house making sure everything was locked and double locked.
Their relationship ended in December 2006, and by the time Angel was born in April of the following year Eddie was engaged to film producers Tracey Edmonds.
That relationship was also short lived, with the couple splitting up just two weeks after their 2008 ceremonial wedding in French Polynesia.
The couple needed a ceremony on U.S. soil to make the marriage legal but called off the official ceremony, deciding to remain 'friends' instead after insiders claimed the relationship quickly turned sour hours after the nuptials.
A wedding guest revealed at the time: "Eddie started yelling at Tracey in front of people. He did it on a few occasions and it was very embarrassing."
Nowadays he is focused on family and his ten children, calling them 'the centre of everything' (Eddie and Paige pictured with the actors seven eldest children in 2016)
In 2012 Eddie started dating Australian model Paige Butcher, who is 18 years his junior.
The pair got engaged in 2018 are share two kids together: Izzy, eight, and Max, five.
This week they sparked rumours that had secretly married after Eddie used the word 'wife' twice during an appearance on The New York Times podcast The Interview.
While his past romances have been tabloid fodder, Eddie and Paige are protective of their privacy and have no social media presence.
'I like to keep as much private as possible now. People will use anything against you. The more you put out, the more you get back,' Paige told Vanity Fair in 2013.
Eddie's relationship with Paige coincided with his career hiatus, with the star hitting pause on movies back in 2011, after stating he was fed up with making 'sh***y movies' and 'them giving me Razzies.'
He has been more selective with his projects over the past decade and instead focused on his family, which also includes his first grandchild Evie Isla, five.
The next generation of Murphys are forging their own paths, aways from Hollywood, with the proud dad quipping in 2021 'my kids are so great, normal people' (Eddie pictured with his ten children, Paige, her mother and his mom, Lillian)
'The whole idea of being out there and doing three movies a year, that s*** is over. I have got all these babies,' he mused in a 2021 interview.
'I found it over and over again and along the way I realised that if you put your children first you never make a bad decision. When you hit a crossroads moment or you have got some s***, you think, 'Well, what is best for my children?''
Eddie has also insisted having ten children is never something he has been ashamed of, though admitted it always begs questions.
'Men kind of look at me like, he's crazy. How much did that sh** cost?' he told The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2019. 'And women, it's kind of like, something sexy about it, I think.
''Eddie Murphy must be doing this thing. Eddie Murphy be getting it in.' It seems OK... I like it. I'm happy with it.'
And the next generation of Murphys are forging their own paths, aways from Hollywood, with the proud dad quipping in 2021 'my kids are so great, normal people – and nobody is like the Hollywood jerk kid.
'My kids are smart and are trying to do stuff. I am blessed with my kids. I really, really got lucky.'
