Eddie Murphy’s Globes Speech Sparked Debate On Whether A ‘Will Smith Joke’ Still Works In 2023

Maybe time has gotten away from you, or maybe you just don’t care, but it’s been about 10 months since The Slap debacle of 2022. Yeah, we thought that we had all moved on. The summer came and went, new memes lived and died, and we thought that finally this whole thing would be put behind us. That is until Award Season 2023 began.

The Golden Globes took place last night, and after all that has gone down with that award show, the calm thing to do would be to not mention The Slap at all and keep everyone on their best behavior. But when you put a bunch of famous (and rich) people in a room, it’s pretty hard to control the situation.

We had some great moments: Jennifer Coolidge and Quinta Brunson secured their legendary status by just being themselves, meanwhile Mike White was bawling like a toddler at all of the wins (as he should be). And, yes, host Jerrod Carmichael made a short reference to Will Smith, but the real joke of the night was told by Eddie Murphy.

Murphy was accepting the Cecil B. DeMille award when he was giving some important life advice to the next generation. “It’s very simple, just do these three things: pay your taxes, mind your business and keep Will Smith’s wife’s name out of your f*cking mouth!” Honestly, it could have been worse.

Of course, Twitter had some thoughts about the comment, with some saying it was a stale punchline, while others were happy that Murphy was the one to get the last laugh.

While Murphy’s joke was pretty mild, many decided that it should have been left in 2022.

Let’s just hope that the Oscars pay attention to what the people actually care about: more Michelle Yeoh!