Tituss Burgess’s takedown of Andy Cohen is reaching epic proportions after he slammed talk show host Andy Cohen for criticizing Eddie Murphy.
Cohen apparently sparked the fire when asking Burgess about Murphy, his co-star in the new film Dolemite is my Name.
“Did you get to chat with him at all?” Cohen asked. “He was very problematic for the gays at one point when I was coming up.” Cohen’s question referred to homophobic jokes used by Murphy in his early stand-up routines.
Murphy has since apologized for his antigay routines.
“He wasn’t problematic for Tituss, and we had a wonderful time,” Burgess answered. “We talked about Dreamgirls. He should’ve won the Oscar, I believe. He was great. Any troubles he may have had with gay people I guess are gone because he loved me.”
Burgess later took to Instagram, referring to Cohen as a “messy queen” for bringing up the issue. “[This is] NOT a place to rehash old rumors or bring a star negative press. Sunday was a display of ratchet behavior by a well-connected man having blatant disregard for one of his guests,” Burgess said.
Now, in an interview with Wendy Williams, Burgess again expressed his frustration with Cohen.
“I think that people misinterpret who they see on the screen sometimes and begin to have a relationship towards you based on misinformation,” Burgess told Williams. “I will not tolerate the dismantling of anyone’s legacy, especially not my own. Who we were speaking about has done a beautiful job being the comedic giant that he is. He has a wonderful movie coming out and I was not going to participate in talking about that. I said what I said.”
“I wasn’t going to waste time digging up something that happened a while ago,” Burgess added. “We’ve all moved past from it and we’ve all learned from it.”
For his part, Cohen was not backing down from a fair question about the legacy of homophobia.
Ask if he was feuding with Burgess, he replied: “He might be, I’m not.”
Nothing like a little controversy to spark ticket sales.
