{"id":38121,"date":"2024-07-10T09:53:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T13:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=38121"},"modified":"2024-07-10T09:53:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T13:53:32","slug":"eddie-murphy-recalls-turning-down-drugs-from-robin-williams-and-jim-belushi-god-was-looking-over-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/07\/eddie-murphy-recalls-turning-down-drugs-from-robin-williams-and-jim-belushi-god-was-looking-over-me.html","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Murphy Recalls Turning Down Drugs From Robin Williams and Jim Belushi: ‘God Was Looking Over Me’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eddie Murphy is still shocked that he\u2019s made it through over 40 years of fame. The actor and comedian was reflecting on avoiding the pitfalls of fame as his stardom rose in the 1980s on The New York Times\u2019 <\/em>podcast, \u201cThe Interview.\u201d Referring to Prince, Michael Jackson, and other stars, Murphy said he looked at them as \u201ccautionary tales.\u201d However, it was his experience on a night out with Robin Williams and fellow “Saturday Night Live” alum John Belushi that gave him pause about what could have happened.<\/p>\n

Murphy recalled going out with Belushi and Williams, and “they started doing coke,” but Murphy turned it down. Murphy said, “Over the years, I trip about that moment because I was really young, and it was so easy to try some coke. I wasn\u2019t taking some moral stance. I just wasn\u2019t interested in it. To not have the desire, the curiosity of it, I\u2019d say that\u2019s providence. God was looking over me at that moment; I didn\u2019t make a left turn. Everything would have been different.” \u00a0Murphy said he was only 19 at the time, and his recollection is likely from the year he joined “SNL” in 1980, the year Belushi left. Belushi died two years later, in 1982, at age 33, from a drug overdose. Williams had been struggling with cocaine at the time as well, but following Belushi\u2019s death and the birth of his first son in 1983, he quit “cold turkey,” according to friend Stanley Wilson in Vice’s “The Dark Side of Comedy” documentary.<\/p>\n