Eddie Murphy Discusses His 10 Kids and Their Shared Trait in Rare Interview

Eddie Murphy, who has 10 children with five different women, has shared his candid reflections on managing his vast family.

The 64-year-old comedy icon his celebrating a half-century in the entertainment industry and has given a rare interview looking back on his life and work.

He frankly revealed that he never planned to produce as huge a brood as he did, saying: ‘It just happened,’ according to People. 

Murphy’s firstborn is a son called Eric, 36, whom he had by Paulette McNeely, a woman he was romantically involved with in 1989. 

He shares his two youngest progeny – Izzy, nine, and Max, six – with Australian model Paige Butcher, whom he started dating in 2012 and married last year. 

Of those children and the seven he welcomed in between, he said: ‘I never knew I would have 10 kids, but now it’s the best thing ever. If you can afford that many kids, you should have as many kids as you can afford. That is fun.’

Murphy also shared the one quality he feels they all inherited at least in part from him, which is that ‘my children are all decent people. I don’t have one rotten one, and I would like to think that they got some of that from me.’

He had five of his children through his 13-year marriage to Nicole Mitchell – Bria, 35, Myles, 33, Shayne, 31, Zola, 25, and Bella, 23.

Between meeting and marrying Mitchell, Murphy also welcomed a now 34-year-old son called Christian with a woman named Tamara Hood.

Murphy’s family also includes his 18-year-old trans son Angel, whom he shares with his onetime fling Mel B of the Spice Girls fame.

Although Murphy initially cast doubt on the claim he was the father of Mel B’s baby, he eventually took a DNA test proving his paternity when Angel was two months old.

By the time he took the test, he was dating Babyface’s ex-wife Tracey Edmonds, who married Murphy on New Year’s Day 2008 and left him two weeks later.

Murphy’s family expanded yet again this year when Eric tied the knot with Jasmin Lawrence, the 29-year-old daughter of comedy icon Martin Lawrence.

Having scrupulously guarded his privacy in recent years, Murphy is now making an exception for a new Netflix documentary called Being Eddie.

In the movie, he shared that he ‘only thought of myself’ before he became a father, but that now his life revolves around his children.

‘My kids are the center of everything,’ he said in the documentary. ‘Before kids it’s just about you, once you have kids it’s all about them.’

He shared that he ‘used to stay up two days sometimes before going to bed’ but after meeting his current wife he ‘got more on her schedule and now we watch two episodes of Seinfeld and go to bed.’

Ahead of the release of the film, he bared his soul about his turbulent childhood, in which his parents Charles and Lillian split when he was just three – and Charles was subsequently murdered by a girlfriend when his son was eight.

‘I’m sure it affected me a bunch of different ways. There was a lot of trauma, and we’re shaped by that stuff,’ said the Brooklyn-born comic.

Help came in the form of Lillian’s next husband Vernon Lynch, Sr., whom Murphy hailed for the example he provided as a stepfather.

‘By the grace of God, my mother married an amazing, solid man who put all the right s*** in me. That’s crucial. It makes a huge difference,’ said Murphy.

The movie also sees Murphy hold forth on the shattering loss of his older brother Charlie Murphy, also a comic, who died of leukemia in 2017 at the age of 57.

While discussing his own endurance in life and in showbiz, Murphy observed: ‘My most important blessing is that I love myself. I’ve always loved myself, always been my biggest fan. That’s at the core of all of the decisions that you make. 

The Norbit star added: ‘Some people go through their whole lives and get to the end and say: “I finally love myself.” I started out that way.’