Background and career
Christopher Julius Rock (born February 7, 1965) is an American comedian, actor and filmmaker. He first gained prominence for his stand-up routines in the 1980s in which he tackled subjects including race relations, human sexuality, and observational comedy. His success branched off into productions in film, television, and on-stage, having received multiple accolades including three Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award nomination. Rock was ranked No. 5 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. He also ranked No. 5 on Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time.
After years working as a stand-up comedian and appearing in minor film roles including Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Rock gained prominence as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1993. While at SNL, he appeared in the films New Jack City (1991) and Boomerang (1992). In 1993, he appeared in CB4, which he also wrote and produced. He reached mainstream stardom with Bring the Pain in 1996. Rock continued making specials which include Bigger & Blacker (1999), Never Scared (2004), Kill the Messenger (2008), Tamborine (2018), and Selective Outrage (2023). He developed, wrote, produced and narrated the live-action sitcom Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009) and animated sitcom Everybody Still Hates Chris (2024-) which were both based on his early life. From 1997 to 2000, HBO aired his talk show The Chris Rock Show.
Rock was cast in starring film roles in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Dogma (1999), The Longest Yard (2005), the Madagascar franchise (2005–2012), I Think I Love My Wife (2007), Grown Ups (2010), Death at a Funeral (2010), Top Five (2014), The Week Of (2018), Spiral (2021), Amsterdam (2022), and Rustin (2023). He has taken roles on television including Empire, Kevin Can Wait, and Fargo. He made his Broadway theater debut in the 2011 Stephen Adly Guirgis play The Motherfucker with the Hat. He has hosted the Academy Awards twice, in 2005 and 2016, and was involved in a highly controversial incident in which he was assaulted by Will Smith at the 2022 Awards.
Rock was born in Andrews, South Carolina, on February 7, 1965. Shortly after he was born, his family moved to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. When he was six years old, they relocated and settled in a yellow brick house in the working class neighborhood of Bedford–Stuyvesant, which Rock refers to as "one of the most famous ghettos in the world." His mother, Rosalie (née Tingman), was a teacher and social worker for people with developmental disabilities; his father, Julius Rock, was a truck driver for The Daily News and newspaper deliveryman. Julius died in 1988 after ulcer surgery.
Rock is the eldest of his parents' seven children (six boys and one girl: Andre (b. 1967), Tony (b. 1974), Brian (b. 1976), Kenny (b. 1979), Andi (b. 1985) and Jordan (b. 1991)), and he had an older paternal half-brother, Charles "Shabazz" Ledell Rock (b. 1953), who died in 2006 after suffering from alcoholism. Rock's younger brothers Tony, Kenny, and Jordan are also in the entertainment business.
How Chris Rock makes money
Rock then wrote and starred in the low-budget comedy CB4, which made $18 million against its budget of $6 million. On October 30, 2016, Netflix announced that they would be releasing two new stand-up comedy specials from Rock, with Rock being paid $40 million per special.
