Cosby spokesman calls Eddie Murphy 'Hollywood slave' after 'SNL' joke

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Comedy legend Eddie Murphy’s return to “Saturday Night Live" this weekend left a lot of fans laughing, but actor Bill Cosby apparently was not one of them.

In his opening monologue, the comedian and former “SNL” star joked, “If you would have told me 30 years ago that I would be this boring stay-at-home house dad and Bill Cosby would be in jail, even I wouldn’t have took that bet.”

“Who is America’s Dad now?” Murphy added.

Cosby, who played iconic TV dad Cliff Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s, is serving three to ten years in prison for sexual assault, and he has faced allegations of sexual misconduct by dozens of women dating back decades. He has denied all of those claims.

A Cosby spokesperson lashed out at Murphy on social media after the show aired Saturday night.

“Mr. Cosby broke color barriers in the Entertainment Industry, so that Blacks like Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart and et al., could have an opportunity to showcase their talents for many generations to come,” wrote publicist Andrew Wyatt. “It is sad that Mr. Murphy would take this glorious moment of returning to SNL and make disparaging remarks against Mr. Cosby. One would think that Mr. Murphy was given his freedom to leave the plantation, so that he could make his own decisions; but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood Slave.”

The statement also invited Murphy to a “meeting of the minds conversation”—presumably with the imprisoned Cosby—about how to “enhance Black people rather than bringing all of us down together.”

Wyatt’s post included the hashtags #NotFunnySNL and #FreeBillCosby.