By getting married to Tracey Edmonds on New Year's Day, Eddie Murphy proved to the world that he was a responsible, mature adult and not the prize bell-end that everyone thought.

And now that the he's proved that to the world, Eddie Murphy's chucked her.

Yes, two whole weeks after getting married, Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds have split up. Eddie Murphy must be distraught – he didn't even get the chance to knock Tracey up, let alone angrily deny that he had anything to do with the pregnancy.

If you've ever seen Norbit, you might be under the impression that Eddie Murphy is not a funny man. But he is. Not in the traditional 'ha ha' sense, though – more in the sense that nothing he does has even the vaguest splinter of logic to it, especially the way he goes about his relationships.

By now you'll all have an almost PhD-level understanding of the relationship between Eddie Murphy and Mel B – that went through the traditional stages of meeting, tattooing, engagement, pregnancy, televised dumping and paternity denial, birth and embarrassing DNA test – and it's a relationship that Eddie Murphy clearly examined and identified several problems with.

And he decided to put them all right with Tracey Edmonds, the woman who Eddie Murphy started going out with before he'd properly split up with Mel B. "There'll be no phantom pregnancies with Tracey," Eddie vowed, "and I certainly won't split up with her just because the thought of being a father terrifies me."

No. Instead, Eddie Murphy split up with Tracey Edmonds because of her surname.

It's emerged that, exactly two weeks after Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds got married in French Polynesia, Eddie and Tracey decided to split up, even before they had the chance to make that marriage legally-binding. According to Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds, this is the reason for the split:

“After much consideration and discussion, we have jointly decided that we will forgo having a legal ceremony as it is not necessary to define our relationship further. While the recent symbolic union in Bora Bora was representative of our deep love, friendship and respect that we have for one another on a spiritual level, we have decided to remain friends.”

While, according to E! Online, this is the reason for the split:

“He was insisting she change her name. It was a huge issue. They were arguing about it before they left for the wedding… There was a knockdown, drag-out family fight two days ago.”

And, according to just about everyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of how these things work, this is the reason for the split:

"It's Eddie Murphy, for Christ's sake. Frankly it's a shock that Eddie didn't hold the wedding up mid-ceremony, split up with Tracey in front of the vicar and then dash over and get three or four bridesmaids pregnant while everyone watched."

So already 2008 looks like it'll be a lame-duck year for Eddie Murphy. January isn't even over yet and he's got a broken marriage behind him, plus he's still got all those child-support bills to pay. And to make matters worse, nobody knows if the Oscars will go ahead next month or not – which might mean that Eddie Murphy won't have anything to storm out of like a tit this year either.

Still, at least Starship Dave sounds hilarious.

Ahem.

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Why Eddie and Tracey Split So Fast – E! Online 

Remember a couple of days ago when Eddie Murphy got married to his girlfriend Tracey Edmonds in French Polynesia? Yeah, didn't happen.

Yes, we know it looked like it happened, and that everyone said it happened and there was a ceremony and everything, but it wasn't a wedding. Apparently Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds were just performing a 'spiritual binding' that wouldn't hold up in court if Eddie, say, knocked Tracey up, denied the baby was his and then dumped her on a European television programme, for example. However, Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds have announced that they do plan to have an official wedding ceremony just as soon as they return to America – which technically still leaves Eddie long enough to, say, do the knocking up/ denying/ dumping thing. If he wants to, that is.

Eddie Murphy is quite the fan of denying things – he's denied that Mel B's baby was his, he's denied that he left last year's Oscars in a huff when he didn't win and he's denied doing anything to that transvestite prostitute he was caught with in 1997 expect help the poor gender-confused whore out a little.

And now it's Eddie Murphy's turn to deny that he got married earlier this week. Although we reported Eddie Murphy's marriage to Tracey Edmonds on Wednesday, and people witnessed the wedding, and it was announced in a statement by Eddie Murphy, and official wedding photos were taken of Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds, apparently they didn't get married at all.

In fact, what happened was a 'spiritual binding' ceremony that has no legal purchase whatsoever because they'd been in French Polynesia for less than a month and they got married on a beach instead of in a building. But movie producer Tracey Edmonds knew all about this anyway, and she's going to marry Eddie Murphy properly when she gets home, as her slave explains:

"As is typical when couples get married in foreign countries, a legal ceremony will take place when they return to the U.S. The wedding that took place in Bora Bora was a ceremony to bind Eddie and Tracey spiritually in the presence of family and friends. The couple plan a legal ceremony as soon as they return to the States."

We wish we knew what a 'spiritual binding' actually involves, because it sounds really cool. We think it's either a ceremony where you get hair extensions made of ghosts, a public display of everlasting commitment or a sneaky way for Eddie Murphy to try and convince Tracey Edmonds that they're married even though it won't stand up in court at all if he ever decides to knock her up, dump her on TV, deny that he fathered the baby and move onto a brand new woman before he's even finished speaking.

Oh, we're kidding – let's hope that Eddie Murphy has learnt from his past indiscretions and never ever gets Tracey Edmonds pregnant. Because, let's face it, in the last year alone the two of them have been involved in the creative process of Norbit and Who's Your Caddy, and with genes like that no baby stands a chance, really.

Read more:

Eddie & Tracey to Hold Legal Wedding Ceremony in U.S. – People 

If Eddie Murphy ever proposed to you, chances are you'd either think "Not with your wayward reputation," or "Hang on, I'm a chap and we've never even met. How odd," but not Tracey Edmonds.

Eddie Murphy married his girlfriend Tracey Edmonds yesterday on a private island in French Polynesia, simultaneously putting all his past relationship woes behind him. And isn't getting married on New Year's Day the perfect way to start a year? It's like Eddie Murphy is looking Tracey Edmonds in the eye and telling her "This is how it'll be for us all year, or at least until I get you pregnant, deny getting you pregnant, leave you for another woman, repeatedly dodge your requests for a DNA test until I'm ordered to take one by a court and then do the voice of a funny donkey for a tired cartoon sequel to pay off all my child support bills. So about three weeks, then."

Women are desperately complicated creatures, so hats off to Eddie Murphy for figuring them out so flawlessly. If you want a woman to like you, Eddie Murphy has reasoned, you don't need to bother with flowers or chocolates or compliments or any of that crap – all you need is a willingness to get matching tattoos and sperm so potent that it dissolves metal.

It certainly worked for Eddie Murphy as far as Mel B was concerned, and the pair of them would have absolutely got married if Eddie hadn't blown it all by splitting up with her on Dutch TV and claiming that the baby wasn't his. We've heard that women view this kind of behaviour on the same kind of level as when you don't empty the kitchen bin for them, and as such Eddie Murphy and Mel B were over as soon as they began.

However, this left an opening for film producer Tracey Edmonds, who saw the way that Eddie Murphy knocked Mel B up, dumped her, tried wriggling out of taking a paternity test several times and eventually grudgingly admitted that he was the father of the baby and thought "I want a bit of that!" Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds got engaged and yesterday they got married – a turnaround so fast that Eddie didn't even have the chance to even slightly knock her up first, let alone get tattoos or accuse her of being a slag on European television. Reuters reports:

Comedian Eddie Murphy married film producer Tracey Edmonds on a private island in French Polynesia on Tuesday, People magazine reported. The sunset ceremony, attended by 25 guests, took place off Bora Bora, a Pacific island about 140 miles northwest of Tahiti, People said, citing the couple's representatives.

Of course, it'd be churlish of us not to wish Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds a long, happy, uncomplicated marriage. They're both grown-ups and know exactly what they're getting themselves into, and we don't don't doubt that they'll be completely perfect for one another for as many days as this marriage lasts. 

The only thing that does concern us, though, is that Tracey Edmonds might get herself involved in a horrible game of one-upmanship with Mel B's new husband Stephen Belafonte to see who's the most unsuitable film producer partner for their respective spouses. Because, you know, how do you top killing a duck with a brick?

Read more:

Eddie Murphy marries in French Polynesia: report - Reuters