Tisha Taylor Murphy: Charlie Murphy's Wife of Twelve Years

Tisha Taylor Murphy was the wife of the comedian and actor Charlie Murphy. She was born on September 9, 1969, in New Jersey, and she died on December 13, 2009, aged 40. She died in her sleep at her home in Englewood, New Jersey, after a two-year battle with cervical cancer. Her husband described the moment she told him, in a children's room, crying. He also said that she arranged her own funeral before she died. Those two details come from him directly, not from a biography page.

Most of what is written about Tisha Taylor Murphy online is copied from a few sources. A good deal of it is invented. Her parents, her childhood and where she are buried are all unrecorded. One widely reproduced claim about the type of her cancer is wrong.

Quick Profile

Rows marked not documented are absent from the sources used here. Her burial place is listed as unknown on her memorial record, the closest thing to an official answer.

Who was Tisha Taylor Murphy?

She was an American woman who lived almost entirely outside public view. Tisha Taylor Murphy raised two children with Charlie Murphy and became a stepmother to his son from an earlier relationship. Beyond her family, very little about her life is on the public record. She held no public position. She gave no published interviews.

That absence matters when reading the pages about Tisha Taylor Murphy. Profiles describing her upbringing or schooling describe nobody in particular. They are assembled from the shape of the average biography rather than from anything about her. Pages that get her right tend to be short. There is genuinely little to report.

She did accompany Charlie Murphy in public on occasion. Charlie Murphy appeared opposite Eddie Murphy in that film.

How did Tisha Taylor and Charlie Murphy meet?

They met on a boat in the early 1990s. Tisha Taylor Murphy was having dinner with friends, and Charlie Murphy asked her to leave with him. She went against the advice of the people she was with.

He drove her to his brother Eddie Murphy's house and walked her in. He described that moment himself. He said his mother was there, his stepfather was there and Eddie was there. He said they were all in the kitchen, and that he said this is my future wife.

They were together for roughly five years before marrying. One profile places the wedding in August 1997. The couple were married about twelve years.

What was Tisha Taylor Murphy's cancer?

Cervical cancer. That is her husband's own description. He recalled coming home and finding Tisha Taylor Murphy in the children's room, crying. He said that was when she told him, and he named the diagnosis in the same sentence. He went on to say that you do not really grasp it. When a person tells you they are going to die, you go crazy.

It is worth being precise about this, because one source gets it wrong. A news report from December 2009 said that reports were that she had died from breast cancer. That claim appears nowhere else. It contradicts her husband's account.

The Tisha Taylor Murphy cancer was diagnosed roughly two years before she died, matching the period her husband's publicist described.

When did Tisha Taylor Murphy die?

Tisha Taylor Murphy died on December 13, 2009. Her husband's publicist, Lyndsey Jacobs, confirmed the news to MTV News in a statement. The statement said she died peacefully on Sunday with family at her side. She had faced cancer for two years. It added that the Murphy family appreciated the support received from friends and fans and requested privacy.

Charlie Murphy said she died in her sleep. The date fits the statement exactly, because December 13, 2009 was a Sunday.

He also said something about the days before her death that became one of the most repeated details about her. He said she was a very organized woman, and that when she died all the arrangements had been made. He said she made her own arrangements.

Who were Tisha Taylor Murphy's children?

Tisha Taylor Murphy had two children with Charlie Murphy, a son named Xavier and a daughter named Eva. She was also a stepmother to a son from his earlier relationship. That accounts for a household of three children.

When she died Xavier was ten. This was the same age he had been when his own father, Charles Murphy, died. He said knowing that wound helped him comfort his son. Eva was still a toddler and asked after her mother daily.

Charlie Murphy also described the effect on the children directly. He said losing somebody that close happens to your children and to you. You do not get used to it.

What did Charlie Murphy say about losing her?

He was unusually direct about it, and he said several things that later profiles flattened into generalities. He said he was not okay. You are never really okay. What you learn is to live with it. He described what Tisha Taylor Murphy told him as the point where he became a different person.

He also explained why the diagnosis struck him as unreasonable. He said that a young woman like Tisha Taylor Murphy did not drink, did not smoke and did not do drugs. He said he knew people who were ninety and did all of that.

After her death he did not remarry. At his daughter's prompting he later began dating again. Charlie Murphy died of cancer in April 2017.

What is not documented about Tisha Taylor Murphy?

Her parents and childhood are not documented. No source records her upbringing, her schooling or her early life in New Jersey. Her burial place is not documented, and the memorial record for her lists it as unknown. No net worth figure exists that any source supports. Her religion is not recorded. She gave no published interview, and every question-and-answer exchange attached to her name across biography sites is constructed. Several pages describe a career she never had. A few invent charitable work or a foundation in her name. Where a page asserts a detail no source supports, that detail is not a fact. It has been left out here.

Why do biography pages keep getting this story wrong?

The reason is visible once the sources are lined up side by side. A report published two days after the Tisha Taylor Murphy death said reports were that she had died from breast cancer. That is the only place the claim appears. Her husband's own interview names cervical cancer. Her memorial record does too.

What appears to have happened is a long chain of repetition. A single hedged sentence became a repeated fact. Each new page cited the one before it.

The same pattern shows up elsewhere. One profile counts two children and omits the stepson. Another invents a career she never had.

This is the ordinary failure mode of celebrity biography writing. It is not deliberate. Each page copies the last, and the error hardens into something that is repeated until it reads like a fact.

What Charlie Murphy was known for

The husband whose words carry most of this record was a comedian and actor. He is the younger brother of Eddie Murphy. He is best known for Chappelle's Show and the film CB-4. He also appeared in the Night at the Museum films.

Chappelle's Show made him widely recognisable. Its success explains the interest in his private life. CB-4 followed in 2006, and Norbit came out in 2007.

He married Tisha Taylor Murphy in 1997 and she died in 2009. He died of cancer in April 2017, at the age of 61. Between those two dates he spoke often about losing her. That is the source of nearly everything known about their life.

What the search results get wrong

Searching for Tisha Taylor Murphy returns a large number of pages and very little original reporting. Several are biography mills. They publish a birth date, a career and an interview for a woman who gave none.

Two specific errors are worth naming because they will be copied again. The first is the type of cancer. A single hedged sentence in a December 2009 news report said reports were that she had died from breast cancer. Her husband named cervical cancer in a published interview, and her memorial record agrees with him. The breast cancer claim appears nowhere except in the pages that descend from that one sentence.

The second is the count of children. She had two children with Charlie Murphy and was a stepmother to a third. Profiles that report two are not necessarily wrong, but they are incomplete, because they drop the child she raised.

Neither error is malicious. They are what happens when a chain of pages repeats itself without anyone returning to a source.

Other profiles here follow women known mainly through a famous partner. They include Jill Diven, Brad Garrett's first wife, and Solica Cassuto, Andy Griffith's second wife.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Tisha Taylor Murphy? Tisha Taylor Murphy was the wife of comedian and actor Charlie Murphy. She was born on September 9, 1969, in New Jersey, and she had two children, Xavier and Eva.

When did Tisha Taylor Murphy die? She died on December 13, 2009, aged 40. Her husband's publicist confirmed the news to MTV News, stating that she died peacefully on Sunday with family at her side.

What cancer did Tisha Taylor Murphy have? She had cervical cancer, diagnosed roughly two years before her death. That is her husband's own description in a published interview.

How did Tisha Taylor and Charlie Murphy meet? They met on a boat in the early 1990s, where she was having dinner with friends. He asked her to leave with her and drove her to Eddie Murphy's house.

Who are Tisha Taylor Murphy's children? She had a son, Xavier Murphy, and a daughter, Eva Murphy. She was also a stepmother to a son from Charlie Murphy's earlier relationship.

Where was Tisha Taylor Murphy buried? The Tisha Taylor Murphy burial place is not documented. The memorial record for her lists the burial details as unknown.

Conclusion

Tisha Taylor Murphy was married to Charlie Murphy from 1997 until her death on December 13, 2009. She died aged 40, in her sleep at home in Englewood, New Jersey, after two years of cervical cancer. Her husband described finding her crying in the children's room. He said she had already made her own funeral arrangements. Her publicist, Lyndsey Jacobs, confirmed her death to MTV News. She had two children, Xavier and Eva, and she was a stepmother to a third. The verifiable record of her life is short. Her parents, her childhood and her final resting place are all unrecorded. One claim has spread widely across the web, that she died from breast cancer. It contradicts the account given by the man she married.

Sources

• Find a Grave, Tisha R. Taylor Murphy memorial: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/178393804/tisha_r-murphy

• Praise Houston, December 15, 2009, publicist statement: https://praisehouston.com/498721/tisha-taylor-murphy-passed-away-peacefully-with-family-at-her-side/

• I Love Old School Music, Charlie Murphy interview quotes: https://www.iloveoldschoolmusic.com/heartbreaking-story-of-charlie-murphys-wife-and-what-she-did-days-before-she-died/

• AmoMama News, Tisha Taylor and Charlie Murphy: https://news.amomama.com/301136-tisha-taylor-is-charlie-murphys-wife-who.html

• Net Worths Daily, Tisha Taylor bio table: https://networthsdaily.com/tisha-taylor/