First of all, if you watch Delirious he spent half of the time talking about "faggots". Then sometime in the 90s he got pulled over with a transexual riding shotgun. The police officer that pulled him over detained him just long enough so the media/paparazzi could arrive and take some photos.
Second of all, watch Beverly Hills Cop. It came out in 1984. As a matter of fact, watch all of his movies from the 80s. Then watch Soldiers Story, Hollywood Shuffle, School Daze and Do The Right Thing. Bottom line, Eddie Murphy was shuffling for the white man and Spike Lee called him out. Whenever Spike Lee would do an interview during his Do The Right Thing era he'd call Eddie Murphy out for being a coon and not making positive movies. Also, Spike called out Eddie Murphy for not using his clout to produce movies.
The premise of this thread is that he started out making Blockbuster movies but somehow Spike Lee was behind more uplifting movies than Eddie Murphy. Coming To America and Boomerang were uplifting but a lot of that mid to late 80s stuff was trash.
Life, Metro, Showtime, Dreamgirls, those were all decent flicks but Beverly Hills Cop makes me cringe.
You really have to watch Hollywood Shuffle to put it in perspective.
And yeah, getting caught with that transexual didn't help his image.