After decades away from the stage, Eddie Murphy is officially returning to stand-up comedy. While Murphy has been teasing the return for months, this particular set will be done while practicing the current social distancing protocols, as he will be doing the set remotely from his home.
The Dolemite is My Name star will perform a stand-up set Byron Allen’s upcoming charity event, the Feeding America Comedy Festival, according to Collider. The event was organized via Allen’s company, Entertainment Studios, and will be co-produced by Funny or Die. Its aim is to raise money for the non-profit Feeding America to aid those hit hardest by coronavirus. Murphy will join an already star-studded lineup, including Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal.
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The event will be three hours long, though it won’t be carried on any network or streaming service. Instead, viewers can watch directly on Allen Media Group’s television networks Comedy.TV on May 9. It can also be streamed on The Weather Channel app as well as the free streaming service Local Now.
“In partnership with Feeding America, my comedian friends and all of us at Allen Media Group are pleased to announce this global live-streaming comedy event on May 9th,” Allen said in a statement about the event. “Laughter is often the best medicine, and we are extremely motivated to bring attention to issues of food insecurity, and to assist in providing meals to families across the country who are financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In 2019, Murphy also had his big-screen comeback, of sorts. He starred in the Netflix biopic Dolemite is My Name, based on the life of fellow comedian Rudy Ray Moore, which earned him acclaim from both audiences and critics. It was also one of the more glaring omissions from this year’s Academy Awards nominees, which led to a 1988 clip of Murphy taking down the ceremony to go viral. Though he was snubbed by the Oscars, he was presented with the Critics’ Choice Lifetime Achievement Award in January.
He also made a huge splash last December, when he hosted Saturday Night Live 35 years after the show helped make him a global superstar. During his monologue, which featured a number of guest appearances, Murphy also made a slight toward an incarcerated Bill Cosby, who used to be a vocal critic of Murphy’s notoriously profane standup. It even prompted a response from a representative for Cosby, who accused the actor of “[selling] himself back to being a Hollywood Slave.”
