Eddie Murphy Opens Up in Rare Interview About His Career and 10 Kids (Exclusive)

There’s pride and self-esteem, and then there’s whatever magical confidence Eddie Murphy has. “My most important blessing is that I love myself,” the legendary comedian and movie star, 64, tells PEOPLE in a rare deep-dive interview for this week’s issue.

“I’ve always loved myself, always been my biggest fan. That’s at the core of all of the decisions that you make. Some people go through their whole lives and get to the end and say, ‘I finally love myself.’ I started out that way.”

Next year marks the somewhat reclusive icon’s 50th year in show business, and to celebrate, he’s peeling back the layers in the new Netflix documentary Being Eddie. “In a business where people come and go, most people don’t get 50 years,” he says. 

Murphy first broke through in the ’80s as a young standout in stand-up and on Saturday Night Live before kicking off a slew of early box office successes like 48 HRS., Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop. The ensuing decades brought more hits, including The Nutty Professor, Dreamgirls and Shrek, as well as a few flops, like The Adventures of Pluto Nash. 

In the new doc he credits his residing self-love for helping shield him from many a Hollywood pitfall, namely the deadly drug and alcohol addictions that claimed the lives of so many of his comedic heroes and peers. He also opens up his storybook L.A. mansion for the first time and shares intimate details of his life as husband to wife Paige Butcher and a proud father of 10. “Being Eddie is a great thing,” he says. “It’s just a unique life that I’ve had.”

Born in Brooklyn, Murphy was a little kid when his father, Charles, then estranged from his mother, Lillian, was murdered by a woman he was seeing. The tragedy undoubtedly left a mark on Murphy’s life.

“I’m sure it affected me a bunch of different ways,” he says of losing the man he’d seen fighting with his mom from his earliest days. “There was a lot of trauma, and we’re shaped by that stuff.” His mother remarried, to Vernon Lynch Sr., someone Murphy says filled an important void: “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.” 

By the time he was a teen, Murphy was a master of impersonations and was convinced he’d be a star. Finding success in New York’s stand-up club scene led to his spot on SNL, and not long after, the silver screen came calling. Murphy answered in history-making fashion because, as he puts it, “when I’m trying to be funny, I’m funny.” 

Asked what it was like to work with Murphy on the 1988 film Coming to America, his longtime friend Arsenio Hall tells PEOPLE, “Very intimidating. Murphy was him. The ‘new sheriff’! It made me prepare and work harder. Raise my game and try not to get blown off the screen when the director calls action.”

Murphy’s also multifaceted; he’s one of the only Hollywood actors to convincingly play multiple characters in the same film, like in Coming to America and The Nutty Professor. In 2007 he received an Oscar nod for his supporting role in Dreamgirls, and he again found critical acclaim with 2019’s Dolemite Is My Name, about real-life comedian Rudy Ray Moore. 

But over the years, some projects fell flat, beginning with 1995’s widely panned Vampire in Brooklyn. As he says in the documentary, “No one sets out to make a bad movie.” The biting criticism he received stung, especially from his comedy alma mater SNL (“Look, children, it’s a falling star,” David Spade infamously joked from the show’s Hollywood Minute desk while showing Murphy’s picture). He says it was the reason he didn’t return to the 30 Rock stage for years.

The star buried that long-held hatchet in 2019, returning to host the show for the first time since 1984 with the help of fellow superstar comedians Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan. Murphy calls it a full-circle moment. “It’s great to see your impact and the influence that you had on other artists, because I feel a kinship with comedians,” he says.

That kinship is so strong, he notes in the film, that he helped fund the burials of some of his heroes who died while down on their luck. “When Redd [Foxx] kicked out, I had to bury Redd,” he reveals “I had to bury Rick [James]. I bought Buckwheat [Thomas] a tombstone.” But the deepest loss was that of comedian Charlie Murphy, his older brother, who died in 2017 at age 57 after battling leukemia. Discussing the pain of that loss is the only time Murphy’s face grows emotional in the new film. 

These days the large family he’s made for himself is his greatest asset. Murphy and his first wife, Nicole, with whom he shares five adult children, divorced after 13 years in 2006. He’s welcomed three children from other relationships and two more with Butcher.

“It just happened,” he says of how he wound up with such a large brood, ranging in age from 36 to 6. “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.” But most important, he points out, “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.” 

Earlier this year the proud dad watched his son Eric, 36, marry fellow comedian Martin Lawrence’s daughter Jasmin, 29. Asked what makes him the happiest now, Murphy says, “Just being Eddie. I love having my family around, and I love that I’ve been in this amazing business for so long. Coming from super humble beginnings and having this longevity, just to be around and see all the different changes and all that stuff. There’s just so much to be happy about.”