Eddie Murphy, the man behind the beloved character of Shrek, recently opened up in his Netflix documentary Being Eddie, about his journey with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is characterized by a pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears that lead to repetitive behaviors or compulsions. Eddie traced his own obsessive behaviors back to his childhood, recalling the time when he would check the stove in the kitchen, ensure all the gas was off, and then lay down for a few minutes before getting up to do it all again. This pattern would repeat every night for an hour.
"I didn't know what it was," Eddie admitted in the documentary. "I'd just say, 'That's just some weird s--t that I do.'" But it wasn't until he was watching the news one day that he realized there was more to his actions. "I was like, 'Oh, mental illness?'" he exclaimed.
The realization that his behavior could be categorized as a mental illness was enough to help Eddie break the habit. "I made myself stop doing it," he said. "I was like, 'I'm not doing it no more. I thought I was weird. I didn't know I had some mental illness. F--k that. I ain't have no mental illness.'" And he forced himself to stop.
While Eddie was able to quit the habit cold turkey in his childhood, he admitted that it hasn't completely left him. "I check the gas every night," he said. "But every now and then, I'll check it twice and say 'No, motherf--ker, you ain't starting that s--t again. Take your ass to bed.'"
In the documentary, Eddie also speculated that his OCD and attention to detail may have helped him along his comedic journey. "The funny person notices stuff first," he explained. "A sense of humor is ultimately an acute sense of proportion."
As for accepting himself where he's at, Eddie has a simple answer: "I love myself. Always loved myself. That's the most important thing." Being Eddie is an intimate look at the actor's journey from standup comic to Saturday Night Live cast member to movie star, all while sharing insight into his inner world and allowing cameras into his home for the very first time. "Through the documentary, people get a better understanding of how I got here," he told Tudum in an interview published on November 12th. "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."
