Eddie Murphy Says He Stopped Acting For Years For This Reason

Eddie Murphy has revealed that he decided to take a step back from acting after being branded "worst actor ever."

Murphy recently released "Coming 2 America," the sequel to the 1988 comedy "Coming to America," but had been mostly out of the public eye for years since 2011. On Tuesday, the 59-year-old revealed that his lengthy acting hiatus stemmed from him winning three Razzie awards.

"I was making s—ty movies. I was like, 'This s—t ain't fun. They're giving me Razzies… Motherf—kers gave me the 'worst actor ever' Razzie. [So I thought], 'Maybe it's time to take a break,'" said Murphy during an appearance on the podcast "WTF with Marc Maron."

He received Razzie awards for his performances in "Norbit," "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" and "Meet Dave." In 2010, he was given the Razzie for "worst actor of the decade."

"I was only gonna take a break for a year, then all of a sudden six years go by, and I'm sitting on the couch and I could sit on the couch and not get off it, but I don't want the last bunch of s—t they see me do [to be] bulls—t," Murphy said.

"The plan was to go do 'Dolemite,' 'Saturday Night Live,' 'Coming 2 America' and then do stand-up and see how I felt afterwards. At least then they'll know I'm [still] funny," added the comedian.

Last year, Murphy won his first Primetime Emmy award after bagging the trophy for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for hosting "Saturday Night Live."

"Coming 2 America," which is now available on Amazon Prime, is no less than a family affair. His daughter, Bella Murphy, made her film debut in the comedy, playing Princess Omma, the daughter of the comedian's character, King Akeem Joffer.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Murphy explained that he has a rule for his kids when it comes to acting.

"I told her that she couldn't work until she was 18, but she started acting lessons, she was doing an acting school and stuff for maybe two years before that," the actor said.

"The role was her age, it was somebody her age, so I was like, 'Mmkay, this is your age, you can go up for this.' So she auditioned for it and got the part," he added.

Bella, 19, was "very nervous" about it. "You know, I didn't want people to, you know, think that I was just doing this because I can or you know, I didn't want people to watch it and be like, 'Oh, that's his daughter because she can't keep up with everyone,' you know?" she recalled.

"I wanted my performance to be really good and I wanted to go in and do the best that I could," she added.