There’s one place you’ll never catch actor Eddie Murphy and that’s at a funeral. In fact, the 64-year-old has only been to two funerals in his life, and apparently, that was way too much for him to take.
Suggested Reading
The actor got candid during a recent interview with USA Today ahead of his new documentary “Being Eddie.” Murphy said the first funeral service he ever went to was for his own father, Charles Edward Murphy, who was killed when he was only eight years old. “A woman stabbed my father. I never got all the logistics. It was supposed to be one of those crimes of passion: ‘If I can’t have you, then no one else will’ kind of deal,” he previously told Rolling Stone.
The death of his father stayed with him even into adulthood when Murphy was once again forced to go to his stepfather’s funeral. “They shouldn’t even have funerals,” Murphy said to USA Today. “I’m like, ‘This funeral is morbid.’ The whole people (in attendance) and seeing your loved one out there, and just emotionally, the whole ritual is too much.”
The “Norbit” actor said he’s not opposed to tears, but the “whole ritual of a funeral is just too much for me.” Because of that, he’s completely fine with cutting a check for a funeral service in exchange for not having to attend it.
“I’ve paid for a lot of funerals, but I don’t go to funerals,” he clarified. That includes that of his own brother, Charlie Murphy, who died after a battle with leukemia in 2017. After Charlie’s service, comedian Cedric the Entertainer posted a photo with comedy icons like Dave Chappelle, D.L. Hughley and George Lopez all present to honor Charlie’s life, E! News reported. Murphy was notably absent.
“When I start talking about my brother, that was emotional,” Murphy continued to USA Today. “A little flicker, though, just enough that you feel it.”
When it comes to his own funeral, Murphy said he doesn’t want a full service. “When I kick out, I’m not having no funeral and be laying up there and people coming and looking at me, lowering me in the ground,” he said. “I am to be cremated immediately. And there’s no funeral, and there’s no memorial or none of that s**t. Just keep it rolling. None of that trauma… It’s way too f*****g much, a funeral.”
He said he also doesn’t care what happens to his ashes “just as long as you don’t have people standing around with my ashes,” he said. “I’m not trying to be in the urn while everybody’s crying. I don’t want to have that moment.”
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.