It was a historic moment just a month ago when Eddie Murphy returned to the Saturday Night Live stage after decades away from the hit series. His career took off when he was added as a cast member at 19-years-old, and when he joined the current cast of comedians to revive his beloved SNL characters, the series brought in its highest ratings for 2019.

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Now that his memoir Living in Color is available for purchase, Tommy Davidson seems to be spilling all the comedy tea. The In Living Color star has been enjoying his run around the press circuit as he shares tidbits of interactions that he’s had with other famous figures throughout his career. He recently claimed that during his stint on In Living Color, Jamie Foxx was a “mean” person who liked to bully him. In a recent interview with The Breakfast Club, Davidson stated that SNL creator and producer Lorne Michaels thought hiring Eddie Murphy was a “mistake.”

“We broke the color barrier with In Living Color, but once the success of In Living Color came, like, look at Foxx now,” Davidson said. “That’ll show you right there. Now, there was the...Entertainment Weekly had the hottest shows of the nineties. And we weren’t in there. Not one single picture. Not even my foot. Not even Jennifer [Lopez’s] ass and that’s gon’ be in any frame… So yeah, that was there, because when I broke into the comedy scene, I broke into all the white clubs turning it out. Standing ovations. Killing it.”

He may have been wowing audiences, but he still was being rejected by those with the power to create career shifts. “And what they would tell me is, you’re not the one we want,” he said. “You’re not what we’re looking for. Even with Lorne Michaels, when I came to audition for SNL, he was like, ‘I’m not lookin’ for a black comedian. Eddie Murphy was a mistake.’ I was like… That was supposed to be my audition. And he said, ‘Have a nice day.’ I was like, ‘Whoa, hold on.'”

Davidson added that he didn’t know why Michaels alleged called Murphy a “mistake.” He added, “If you think Eddie was a mistake then what kind of show do you have? He like, saved your show?” Watch Tommy Davidson’s full interview with The Breakfast Club below.

His career catapulted into stardom as one of the key cast members of In Living Color, but all that glitters isn’t gold. His funny characters are now apart of television history, but while he was making America laugh every week, Tommy Davidson was struggling with a serious addiction. The actor has been on a press tour recently in support of his newly released memoir Living in Color, and in a chat with Comedy Hype, Davidson discussed leaving his hit show to go to rehab.

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“I don’t make no excuses for nothing,” the comedian said. “It was just I had a problem, man. And it took me out, and if it wasn’t for me having good people around me, I’d be where Elvis [Presly] is, John Belushi is, [Chris] Farley. I’m grateful. I don’t even trip. It got to that point where I had to do something and life circumstances would come along… and you’ll throw caution to the wind to warnings. I seen the warnings all around my neighborhood. I seen addicts all my life. I seen people with alcohol problems all my life. All my life. And people would sit me down and say don’t you do that, and it wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just one of them things where there was a lot of opportunities available to me and I was in an emotional space where I was dependent on those things to help me deal with the present reality.”

He admitted that Keenan Ivory Wayans, the creator of In Living Color, along with others pulled him to the side to urge him to get help. After he left for a time Davidson did return to the show, but the cast had made a few changes while he was gone. He said “there was a lack of quality to the show” at that point and that he missed the friendship he’d formed. Check out his clip in full below.

Jada Pinkett Smith and comedian Tommy Davidson star in the 1998 film Woo. Once the film was wrapped, Tommy and the producers weren’t so happy with the ending so they decided to end with a scene of he and Jada’s character dancing since they played each other’s love interest in the film. Tommy had an idea to kiss Jada while cameras were rolling for added effect but failed to pass the idea by Jada before they went on set. Since Jada and Will Smith were engaged at the time, the Bad Boys actor was present on set and saw Jada flinch when Tommy went in for the kiss. 

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“I didn’t know this: You have to rehearse a kiss,” Tommy wrote in his new memoir Living in Color. “You can’t just spring it on your costar … And I didn’t think it was all that big of a deal.” After the scene, Tommy detailed how Will stormed into his trailer to confront him and things got tense. “I didn’t appreciate that,” Will said. 

“Will went all gangsta on me, saying what I did was not cool,” Tommy continued. “There was a moment there when we might have come to blows. My reactive fight-or-flight instinct was triggered and I could have exploded.” The issue was settled since Jada was right behind Will and came into the trailer to defuse the situation. Apparently the situation is now history as Jada and Will have always been nice when running into Tommy. 

Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx has come a long way in his career since his start as a small-time stand-up comedian. He’s put in the work to become an A-list actor, but according to his former In Living Color co-star Tommy Davidson, Foxx wasn’t always the easiest person to work with. The pair starred on the hit 1990s comedy show and repeatedly worked together on hilarious scenes that have gone down in television history, but Davidson shares in his forthcoming memoir that Foxx often acted like a “mercifully mean” bully.

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In Davidson’s book Living In Color, which hits shelves on January 28, the actor gave a few examples of how Foxx would allegedly do his best to get under Davidson’s skin. He wrote about working with Foxx on In Living Color during a scene when Foxx portrayed hs famous, less-than-attractive female character Wanda. In the scene, Wanda gives Davidson’s unsuspecting character a massage, but according to Davidson, Foxx decided to do a little improv and attempted to pull Davidson’s underwear off in front of the audience for a “cheap laugh.”

Davidson admitted his initial reaction was to “bust him in his mouth, saying, ‘What the f–k, motherf–ka!’” but he didn’t. He also called Foxx a “competitive” type who teased Davidson in order to “score points” with In Living Color creator Keenen Ivory Wayans. The pair also worked together in the future on the comedy film Booty Call, but Davidson said Foxx was “determined to steal every scene he could” even though he was a supporting role. 

Once, Davidson said Foxx even took a low blow while they were playing one-on-one on the basketball court. “If I had hit my head on the hardtop concrete, that would have been the end of me,” he wrote, according to Page Six. “I was ready to give Jamie some street-fighting lessons too, but the crew pulled us off each other and held me back.” He added, “Maybe [Foxx is] a better person now. I would like to believe he is.” Check out the massage scene Davidson referenced, below.