Update: Eddie Murphy is the top choice to host this year’s Oscars?

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

UPDATE – As rumored, Eddie Murphy WILL in fact host this year’s Oscars. The AMPAS announced today that Murphy will host the 84th Academy Awards, which will take place on February 26th.

Murphy (or his publicist) said in a statement, “I am enormously honored to join the great list of past Academy Award hosts from Hope and Carson to Crystal, Martin and Goldberg, among others. I’m looking forward to working with Brett and Don on creating a show that is enjoyable for both the fans at home and for the audience at the Kodak Theatre as we all come together to celebrate and recognize the great film contributions and collaborations from the past year.”

As
you all know by now, director Brett Ratner has been named the producer of
this year’s Academy Awards aka the Oscars. Well, now Deadline.com is
reporting that Mr. Ratner will be speaking to the folks behind the show on
Tuesday and his one and only recommendation for host of this year’s event
would be none other than the start of DR. DOLITTLE, NUTTY PROFESSOR and
NORBIT (sorry Eddie, you’ve let us down over the past two decades!), Eddie
Murphy! I personally find this to be an extremely odd choice as
Murphy used to be a very funny comic, but nowadays has stopped doing any
stand-up and prefers to make "kiddie movies" and stay out of the
public eye. I assume Mr. Ratner has already spoken to Eddie about this
possibility, so I’m a little amazed that he would be willing to host the
show, but I guess we’ll all have to wait and see how this turns out. I
wouldn’t mind seeing him try something like this, but seeing as his
funniest humor was always R-rated, I’m not sure how great he might be live
and under the gun as such. For those scoring at home, here are the hosts
from the previous few Oscar ceremonies below…

1998 & 2001: Whoopi Goldberg
1999 & 2003: Billy Crystal
2000 & 2002: Steve Martin
2004 Chris Rock
2005 & 2007: Jon Stewart
2006 Ellen DeGeneres
2008 Hugh Jackman
2009 Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin
2010 James Franco, Anne Hathaway