As far back as I can remember, there have been rumors about Johnny Gill and Eddie Murphy being a lot more than just friends. I’m pretty sure that they’ve been around since before I was born, and for some reason, they’re still going strong. That might have something to do with the fact that Gill is still answering questions about such rumors. In a new chat with The Breakfast Club, the 48-year-old singer (who is promoting his new album Game Changer), said that they have actually had an effect on a past relationship. A woman he was dating for some time became concerned about the rumors about Eddie Murphy and confronted him about them. To prove that such rumors about his sexuality were wrong, Gill claims that he took a lie detector test to clear his name.
“It wasn’t about the people that I wanted to prove it to. I was dating my ex and I remember her coming back to me one day saying, ‘I’m hearing all this stuff about this and that, and you and Eddie,’ and I’m like, there’s no way. I said, ‘Do you believe that stuff?’ She said ‘No, but people are saying this and that.’ So my thing was, I’m not laying in bed next to a woman that I’m supposedly talking about marrying and being a part of my life, and I’m worried, ‘are you sitting here having any doubts?’ It wasn’t her fault because you live in a society where…it’s crazy because this is part of what comes with the territory. And at the time I was pissed, and you’re going, ‘Who said it because I’m going to whip somebody’s a**.’ But it was a bunch of people’s a**es to whip.”
When Charlamagne brought up the old controversy surrounding a photo of the two where they looked like they were walking close together, Gill said that the image that was passed around had been doctored using “Photoshop.” And with photos like that making the rounds, he didn’t blame his ex for having questions:
“I wanted to make sure that if she was going to be laying next to me, that there was no question. I wrote down questions and I told her, ‘ask anything you want.’ Have I even ever thought about another man? We laid it all out! She laid there when we got the results back and she cried. And she said, ‘I never doubted you.’ She thanked me. I said, ‘People talk, and people are going to always talk, and there’s nothing I can do about that.’ It was many people. And at the end of the day, I’m like, hey, it is what it is. The thing that I realized was, if I had worked to try and prove to somebody that I’m not somebody that they think I am, everyone would have won. Because now I’m coming outside of me trying to do something to prove something to somebody. I had to continue to go forth and do and be who I am.
When I look at the Bill Cosby situation, think about it, Bill Cosby is going through what he’s going through. It’s a number of people coming out. Listen, all that stuff that you hear, the rumors about me, show me one who has come out and said I did this, or a string of people that have said that. Get out of here!”
As for whether the rumors negatively affected his friendship with Murphy, Gill said no.
“Never. Me and Eddie never once thought about it. Here’s how we all felt, our whole crew: Talk that sh*t you want. But I’ve offered many times. Anybody that felt or thinks that I’m that way, or believes that I’m that way, come and approach me. I’m approachable. And if you walk away on two feet, I’ll be whatever you want me to be…”
Interesting…
Check out Gill’s conversation with The Breakfast Club and let us know what you think about the rumors and his response to them after all these years:
