Back in July, the internet was abuzz! Nicole Murphy (Eddie Murphy’s ex-wife) was seen out in Italy with the director Antoine Fuqua. They were making out in some photos and she was wearing a skimpy bikini and the whole thing looked like a hot Italian hookup. The problem? Antoine Fuqua was and is a married man: he’s been married to Lela Rochon since 1999. There was some question about whether Fuqua and Rochon had possibly separated quietly, but no one ever found out because they were too busy yelling at Nicole Murphy for being a homewrecker. She apologized several days after the photos were published, and this week she went on Wendy Williams’ talk show to explain WTF really happened.
Nicole Murphy really regrets kissing married director Antoine Fuqua. The 51-year-old model appeared on “The Wendy Williams Show” on Tuesday and again expressed her remorse over the smooch, which was photographed by paparazzi in July while the two were in Italy for a film festival.
“It was a frozen-in-time thing,” Murphy told the eponymous talk show host of the steamy pool makeout. “Trust me, I wish it didn’t happen. It was a moment where I should’ve thought more through the situation. Make better judgments. It’s something I apologized for.”
Following the release of the photographs, Murphy put out a statement claiming she and Fuqua, who’s married to Lela Rochon, were simply family friends. “I did not put out that statement,” she revealed Tuesday. “I did not release that statement, Wendy.”
Murphy, who has five kids with ex-husband Eddie Murphy, had previously apologized in a statement she gave to TMZ after the pictures came out in July. “It was a moment that should not have happened. I regret it,” Nicole maintained. “I apologized for it. I’m a human being, it was a mistake.”
On Williams’ show Tuesday, Nicole urged women to do their research because “this could happen to you…At the moment, maybe I had a different impression of [their marriage],” she said. Nicole also declared that it’s “absolutely false” that she broke up Fuqua and Rochon’s marriage and claimed she and Rochon aren’t friends despite reports they were very close. Williams then urged Nicole to look directly into the camera and address Rochon. “Darling, it was a mistake,” Nicole told an absent Rochon. “I apologize.”
“At the moment, maybe I had a different impression of [their marriage].” It bugs me that Nicole is the one out there, explaining herself. She still hasn’t thrown Fuqua under the bus, and we still don’t know what HE told HER about his marriage. If a guy tells you “I’m separated” or “me and my wife are not in a good place,” how many women really grab their phone right then and there to research that sh-t? I mean, we should! But how many of us actually do? What I’m saying is that men lie and feed women fake ass stories and it shouldn’t just be on women to research this sh-t. Ugh. Of course the other option is that Nicole is just a messy homewrecker.
Antoine Fuqua seen kissing model Nicole Murphy while married to Lela Rochon https://t.co/pQHDep5YKx pic.twitter.com/WlYvqwge9x
— Page Six (@PageSix) July 23, 2019
Here’s the interview – the Fuqua conversation starts up around the 3:20 mark.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid and WENN.
If a man says to me “my wife and I are not in a good place”, he’s still telling me he’s married. My response “tell me when you and your wife are in a divorced place” …..then we’ll talk.
All.damned.day.
That’s some absolute messy shit and I have no doubt it’s what Eddie has told women before.
Nicole should stop talking.
This. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
I don’t know the details here but it seems he could have told he was separated. I’ve had guys say this to me before, and it was a lie. It’s true that it shouldn’t just be her explaining things here…
@ Superstef : I had it happen to me last year. He told me his wife had moved out on him years ago and moved back to their home state with their teenage daughter. I found out later that this was true but the marriage didn’t end then (as he led me to believe). She moved back for a job, he joined her a year later and they’d been together ever since. It wasn’t a happy marriage but they sure as hell were not separated or divorced. So now I will check (Google, Facebook, ID check services) and save myself the pain of finding out afterwards.
Sorry that happened Sarah, good call on checking up on them now via social media.
Last year, I met a guy in a bar while we were both travelling for business. We hit it off and spent the night together. This was very rare for me but it happened.
After looking into him online the next day, I learned he was married and his wife was 6 months pregnant! He told me he was single. I feel horrible for her, she has no idea, and I reckon he’s done it before and/or will do it again. Uh, made me feel awful…
It would be nice if we could just trust people not to lie, but some humans (men and women) just seem to be prone to it. it sucks to be so suspicious, but what else can one do?
I don’t think she could apologize much more. Nice to hear someone owning up to a mistake instead of dancing around it.
No explanation would make things better, and since she’s not the one who’s married I don’t think she has to explain as it’s plain to see what happened.
I love learning about statement analysis and her statements to Wendy have red flags. She’s lying.
“MAYBE I had a different impression” struck me as a bit weird.
I agree. As a former lawyer, I would pounce on that “maybe”. Well, did you or didn’t you have a different impression? Which was it?
And I agree the one sided nature of this is skewed – I don’t hear him apologizing on TV.
Even though I don’t condone men/women kissing/having sex with married people, it is Antoine Fuqua who is MARRIED and should have not kissed another woman. He should be the one explaining why he was caught kissing a woman who is not his wife.
This annoys the hell out of me.
People always blame the women. Whether its the one the man is cheating with or the wife he is cheating on.
If he is cheating, call him out and ask him what he is doing, and leave the ladies out of it.
This annoys me too. I understand being upset because she knowingly (or unknowingly) helped your partner cheat but at the end of the day your partner is the one who was unfaithful. The idea that we have to hold “the other woman” accountable for a man’s infidelity is extremely misogynistic. No need to forget and forgive but place the blame on the person it truly belongs to.
I would give her a pass if this were Nicole’s first time at the dealing with married men rodeo.
Oooh girl, stop talking. Let the married man do the talking.
Antoine Fuqua is an established dirtbag allegedly with multiple kids that were born after he was married.
Two things I am curious about:
1) Lela seems to work substantially less since her marriage to him which strikes me as odd. Like yea there are less roles for older women but theoretically she should be positioned to get some nepotism hires like a lot of actresses that are married to directors do.
2) Nicole seems to have a bad reputation amongst black Hollywood. Lisa McCoy used this incident to also accuse her of sleeping with her husband. And Holly Robinson Peet (sp?) basically accused her of lying in this interview. I would really like to know why she is so disliked!
She has a home wrecker rep, but the men she slept with cheated on their wives, not her. She’s trying to stop the attacks. Folks are probably yelling stuff at her on the street at her hangouts and looking at her funny, so she’s trying to repair her rep. She doesn’t care about hurting Lela Rochon. She cares about the public hating her because of her rep with Michael Misick while he was married. She denied that, too, but a lot of the sisters in Hollywood and music know Lisa McCoy. Da Brat confirmed that Lisa was telling the truth, but cheaters stay saying that they didn’t do it.
She can do whatever she wants, and it’s not her fault that Fuqua is a bad husband. Fuqua isn’t going to address it. He’s just going to deal with Lela privately, and Lela hasn’t left as far as the media knows. Fuqua is a cheater, and Lela’s not going anywhere because they have kids in grade school, and she probably feels it’s too hard to leave or she would have left. For Fuqua, it’s prpbably cheaper to keep her.
Me too! But the comment above about married man rodeo makes me think I have an idea. True the husband should be answering about this mess since he’s embarrassed his wife so publicly but this woman is beyond innocent so let her hang herself out to dry
@ladylaw I think Lela has had some health issues over the years which is why I think she hasn’t worked consistently.
With Nicole, people are coming after her because she seems to have a pattern with dating married men. The men too should be dragged and Antoine Fugue seems to have gotten off easy which I don’t think is fair. Nicole isn’t some naive 20 year old but it’s no telling the BS that he fed to her too.