10 children to 5 different mothers and an Aussie fiancée: Eddie Murphy's complicated family life.

Back in 2019, veteran comedian Eddie Murphy made a triumphant return to Saturday Night Live.

After a 35-year absence, one of the show's most celebrated performers who first appeared aged just 19, came back to the show that launched his career – and the audience welcomed him with open arms.

But there's been one long-running joke of sorts in Hollywood that has stuck with Murphy. And it's the fact that he has 10 children. Specifically, 10 children to five different mothers. 

As one of his fellow SNL former cast members said on the Golden Globes stage this week: "Your pullout game is weak. You look at Paige [Murphy's fiancée], and you get her pregnant."

Watch the best scenes from an Eddie Murphy classic, Daddy Day Care. Post continues after video. 

In 2018, The Nutty Professor lead actor welcomed his 10th child into the world with his then-41-year-old long-term Australian partner and fiancée Paige Butcher. The couple welcomed a baby boy named Max Charles Murphy. Murphy and Butcher are already parents to Izzy Oona who is six years old.

The comedian, now 61, has 10 children to five different mothers.

For Murphy, fatherhood began back in 1989, when he was a rising Hollywood star. He welcomed his first son, Eric, with his girlfriend at the time, Paulette McNeely.

As the New York Post reports, not much is known about McNeely. She has never been photographed and her relationship with Murphy appeared to be short-lived.

The following year his second son, Christian, was born. Murphy shares the now 32-year-old with his ex-partner Tamara Hood.

In 1988 (while he was possibly still with McNeely) Murphy met Nicole Mitchell at the NAACP Image Awards. They later began dating and moved in together. On March 18, 1993, the couple married in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Murphy and Mitchell went on to have five children together – Bria, 33, Miles, 30, Shayne Audra, 28, Zola Ivy, 23, and Bella Zahra, 20.

Eddie Murphy, Nicole Mitchell, and Eddie's kids in 2004: Image: Getty.

At 4.45am on May 2, 1997, police pulled Murphy over on the Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. The actor was driving in his Toyota Land Cruiser at the time and there was a sex worker named Atisone Seiuli (also known by the name Shalimar), in the passenger seat.

Murphy was not arrested nor charged when he was stopped after Seiuli got into his car. The police officers questioned him and determined no illegal activity had occurred.

The incident made international headlines and was compared to Hugh Grant receiving oral sex in his car from a sex worker named Divine Brown in 1995.

In August 2005, eight years after the incident, Mitchell filed for divorce citing "irreconcilable differences" with her husband of 12 years.

"Eddie and I are friends; he's my babies' daddy, so we speak to each other and have a great relationship and I think that's important when you have children involved," Mitchell told Radar in 2012.

In 2006, Murphy met Mel B – aka Scary Spice.

Not long after the actor began dating the former Spice Girl, Mel B discovered she was pregnant. She publicly announced the news and claimed the baby was Murphy's.

In response, Murphy told a reporter, "I don't know whose child that is until it comes out and has a blood test. You shouldn't jump to conclusions, sir".

Mel B gave birth to a baby girl, Angel Iris Murphy Brown, on April 3, 2007, which also happened to be Murphy's 46th birthday. DNA tests later confirmed that Murphy was the father of Angel Iris.

In 2014, Mel B told The Guardian Weekend Murphy now has a relationship with his daughter.

"We go over there as a family, we have dinners together, everything is fine… now. He's a great guy," she said.

On January 1, 2008, Murphy married film producer Tracey Edmonds in a private ceremony on an island off Bora Bora. When they arrived back in the US, the couple released a statement, telling the public they had no plans to make their marriage official under US law.

Murphy then began dating Paige Butcher in 2012. The couple met on the set of Big Momma's House 2. Butcher, a Perth-born model and actress, had a small role in the film.

Eddie Murphy and Paige Butcher. Image: Getty.

Eddie and Paige (centre) with seven of Eddie's 10 children in 2016. Image: Getty.

As soon as the couple became official, Butcher deleted her entire social media presence.

"I'm in a relationship with a celebrity, so I felt like there's already enough of me out there," she told Vanity Fair in 2013. "I felt like I was giving out too much information. I was giving people too much access. I like to keep as much private as possible now."

In 2016, Murphy told Entertainment Tonight his kids were the "brightest part" of his life.

"My world revolves around them – even the old, grey, bald ones."

The actor also referred to fatherhood as "the centre of everything", in a recent interview with the British newspaper Mirror.

"I am going to be 60 in April and I have all these babies," he told the publication. "The whole idea of being out there and doing three movies a year, that s**t is over. I have got all these babies... Along the way I realised that if you put your children first, you never make a bad decision," he continued. 

"When you hit a crossroads moment or you have got some s**t, you think, 'Well, what is best for my children?' If you go that route then you never make a bad decision."

Murphy, who is also a grandfather, went on to say that he's "blessed" and got really lucky with his kids. 

"I am so blessed with my kids. I don't have one bad seed. I don't have any like, 'Oh you are the one'. I don't have any of that. My kids are so great, normal people – and nobody is like the Hollywood jerk kid.

"My kids are smart and are trying to do stuff. I am blessed with my kids. I really, really got lucky."

This article was originally published on December 23, 2019, and was updated on January 12, 2023.

Feature Image: Getty.

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