Chris Rock Opens Up About Being Sexually Assaulted By School Bullies In Resurfaced Interview
He opened up about learning to control his anger.
Ovidiu Hrubaru | Shutterstock In a resurfaced interview, Chris Rock talked about his traumatic past and the instances where he was bullied and sexually assaulted when he was younger.
Since Will Smith walked on stage during the 2022 Oscars, striking Rock in the face after the comedian took a jab at Jada Pinkett Smith having alopecia, past interviews with Rock have started being shared online.
Chris Rock previously talked about being sexually assaulted by his bullies.
While speaking to Howard Stern back in 2020, Rock opened up about the trauma he experienced while growing up in Brooklyn and attending a predominantly white private school, where he was frequently harassed.
“It was just a horrible existence,” Rock said. “The closest character I can relate to is Tim Robbins in The Shawshank. Every day was hell. I was a n***er and I got [my] f**king a** beat. And I got physically f**ked up, and sometimes some sexual sh*t happened, and yeah. I wasn’t raped, but rape-ish.”
Speaking on his "childhood trauma," Rock believes that it is responsible for the kind of mindset he has today. "I think I’ve dealt with it because I can write jokes about it, but I never dealt with it."
Chris Rock told Howard Stern that he reencountered one of his bullies as an adult.
“I was doing a movie a couple of years ago and one of my bullies was working security on the movie — a guy who literally, one day at school, turned me upside down and shook the money out of my pockets.”
“He was kind of ashamed and I gave him just a quick look, like, ‘Hey man, I hope you’re doing well, take care,’ and I kept it moving. I didn’t like, ‘Get him off the set, get him fired!’” Rock continued, adding that the bully having "to watch me in all of my glory and to be so close to me yet be so motherf**king far, I didn’t have to do anything."
Back in January 2022, Rock appeared on an episode of 'Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade,' talking about his childhood bullies throughout his childhood.
"Half of the bullying was because I was just a little guy. Then I got bused to school and the bullying was because I was the little guy and I was Black. I was getting double bullied," he shared.
The 57-year-old comedian revealed that after enduring the bullying for some time, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
"I went home, I put a brick in a book bag — this is like a legendary story in my neighborhood — I swung that sh*t and smacked the guy in the face with this brick and stomped on him, Joe Pesci-style, to the point that we thought he might die," Rock explained.
Chris Rock has had therapy to deal with his past trauma.
After attending therapy, Rock eventually realized that the incident ended up having a long-term impact on his life, and how he approaches his anger.
"Long story short, from that day on, as my shrink puts it to me, you have been scared to be angry ever since," he said. "The guy you saw was bending over backwards to be nice because I was so scared of my anger."
Rock remembered that his therapist told him to move past the incident because "this guy brought something out in you and you're so scared of that thing coming out of you again that you let the whole world walk all over you. Your friends walk over you, your friends walk over you, your female relationships — everybody just f**ks you over."
After reflecting on that moment, and working on controlling his anger, Rock praised himself for being better able to control his emotions.
"I'm not scared of letting people know how I feel about certain things," he concluded. "Now, I can say, 'Hey I don't like what you said to me,' without losing my head, without hitting someone on the head with a frickin' brick."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.