NEED TO KNOW

  • In the new Netflix documentary Being Eddie, Eddie Murphy opens up about dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a kid
  • “I would go and check the stove in the kitchen and make sure all the gas was off in the kitchen,” Murphy recalls, adding that he would check over and over
  • “My mother, nobody knew this was going on,” Murphy reveals

Eddie Murphy is getting candid about dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In his new documentary Being Eddie, the actor and comedian, 64, says he first recognized he had the condition as a child. 

“I used to have that OCD when I was a kid. I didn’t know what it was. I would go and check the stove in the kitchen and make sure all the gas was off in the kitchen,” the Beverly Hills Cop star says in the Netflix film.

“And I’d lay down for about, you know, five minutes, and I would get back up and go back in the kitchen and look at the stove again and check all the gas, and then I’d go back in the bed and lay there for about five, 10 minutes and then get back up and go look at it and look at the stove and make sure all the gas was off. Then go back to bed, lay there for another 10 minutes and get back — and this went on for maybe like an hour. And I did that every night,” Murphy, who grew up in New York, recalls.

“Every night. And I’d just say, ‘That’s just some weird s— that I do.’ My mother, nobody knew this was going on. And I used to make a goofy sound. I used to go ‘uh-mm-mm’ and do that all the time. You’re just sitting there watching TV going ‘uh-mm, uh-mm,’ ” continues Murphy.

A young Eddie Murphy in ‘Being Eddie’.

Eddie Murphy/Courtesy of Netflix

“Then one day I was watching the news and they did something on OCD, and it was like, ‘Oh, that’s what I — I be doing s— like that.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ I was like, ‘Oh, mental illness?’… And when I saw that it was like some mental illness s—, I made myself stop doing it. I was like, ‘I’m not — I’m not doing it no more. I thought I was weird. I ain’t know I had some mental illness. F— that. I ain’t have no mental illness. Mental illness, my ass.’ And I forced myself to stop doing it.”

Obsessive-compulsive disorder “features a pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions,” according to the Mayo Clinic. “These obsessions lead you to do repetitive behaviors, also called compulsions. These obsessions and compulsions get in the way of daily activities and cause a lot of distress.”

Murphy concludes the segment in the documentary by acknowledging that his compulsions haven’t completely dissipated. “I check the gas every night, still. But every now and then, I’ll check it twice, and say ‘No, motherf—er, you ain’t starting that s— again. Take your ass to bed,’ ” the father of 10 says with another laugh.

Eddie Murphy in ‘Being Eddie’.

Courtesy of Netflix

Being Eddie offers an intimate look at the Oscar-nominated actor’s rise to fame and his life now. 

“Through the documentary, people get a better understanding of how I got here,” he recently told Netflix’s Tudum. “A young person might think I just walked out of heaven into Hollywood, but that’s not quite how it happened. For the first time, they’re getting a little peek at me.”

Being Eddie is now streaming on Netflix.