Eddie Murphy Wins First Emmy for Guest Actor Comedy Series Category For Hosting on ‘SNL’

Veteran actor and comedian, Eddie Murphy received his first-ever Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his hosting gig on Saturday Night Live. He was up against Adam Driver (SNL), Luke Kirby (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Dev Patel (Modern Love), Brad Pitt (SNL), and Fred Willard (Modern Family).

While Murphy’s acceptance speech wasn’t aired, it was shared via the Television Academy’s Twitter feed— “Thank you to everybody at the Emmys. Thank you so much for giving me an Emmy. I don’t have an Emmy. This is 40 years since I started Saturday Night Live, this is my first Emmy, so thank you so much. I want to thank Lorne Michaels for putting this whole thing together, and making this happen. And I want to thank, the cast, the writers and the crew at SNL. This was a very, very special thing for me to come back and have the show turn out the way it did. I’m still floating from it. And thank you to everybody for giving me an Emmy.”

Murphy was previously nominated for Emmys for SNL in 1983 (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy, Variety, or Music series), 1984 (Writing in a Variety or Music Program, Outstanding Individual performance in a Variety or Music Program), and in 1999 for The PJs (Outstanding Animated Programming, Hour or Less).