Eddie Murphy’s leather suits from the 1980s are probably the most iconic outfits ever worn by a stand-up comedian on stage. His fashion choices in those days earned him comparisons to Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson rather than to his comedy contemporaries. And with the clothes Presley and Jackson wore being displayed in museums at this point, you would think the outfits Murphy sported in Raw and Delirious would be a part of an exhibit somewhere as well. Unfortunately, not only are they both long gone, but one of them was actually destroyed by a fellow comedian.
Appearing on The Tonight Show ahead of his long-awaited return to Saturday Night Live in 2019, Murphy revealed the fate of the legendary red and purple suits he wore during his early specials. “I don’t know what happened to the purple one, but the red suit was destroyed one night,” he told Jimmy Fallon. Murphy explained that he was hanging out with fellow comedian Keenen Ivory Wayans at the time, who would do anything Murphy dared him to do. As the two were getting ready to go out, Wayans came across Murphy’s red outfit from Delirious hanging in the closet and decided to try it on.
“And Keenen’s like six four with muscles, so the suit was busting off him. And I said, ‘I dare you to go out with that suit on,’” Murphy recalled. From there, the two went around to different New York City nightclubs like Studio 54, with Wayans rocking the ill-fitting leather suit the entire time. Sadly, according to Murphy, “At the end of the night, the suit was destroyed.”
One positive thing did come out of that evening, however. As Murphy tells it, Wayans, wearing his old outfit, served as the inspiration for the Frenchie character he used to play on In Living Color in the ‘90s, who also famously wore a red leather suit:
“That started from going to the club one night, and he was Frenchie one night from ten to six in the morning, and didn’t come out of character,” Murphy continued.
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