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 sitcom Everybody Hates Chris (2005–2009), which was 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.
Rock's family history was profiled on the PBS series African American Lives 2 in 2008. A DNA test revealed that he is of Cameroonian descent, specifically from the Udeme people of northern Cameroon. Rock's great-great-grandfather, Julius Caesar Tingman, was enslaved for 21 years before he served in the American Civil War as part of the Union Army's United States Colored Troops, and then later was elected to two terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives. During the 1940s, Rock's paternal grandfather moved from South Carolina to New York City to become a taxicab driver and preacher.
Rock, who was as he describes it "a little .. skinny runt," was bullied starting in the second grade in 1972. He was bused to two schools in predominantly poor, white neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Public School 277 in Gerritsen Beach, and Marine Park Junior High School in Marine Park, where he endured bullying and beatings from white students. He said: "I was a fucking nerdy motherfucker. So, you know, I was bullied pretty bad, but if I went to a black school, I'd probably got bullied too." He recalled later that: "They all cursed. The bad black kids cursed, and the white kids cursed in general conversation. It was another world -- Italian, Irish. They pretty much picked on me and the Jews."
Rock then attended James Madison High School, but dropped out in 1982 at 17 years of age. He later earned a General Educational Development (GED) high-school-equivalency diploma. Rock then worked various jobs at fast-food restaurants, including as a busboy at a Red Lobster. He attended Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn for one year and studied communications.
1984–1999: Saturday Night Live and standup
Rock began working as a stand-up comic during 1984 in New York City's Catch a Rising Star. Upon seeing his act at a nightclub, Eddie Murphy befriended and mentored the aspiring comic. Murphy gave Rock his first film role and big break in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). Rock rose up the ranks of the comedy circuit in addition to earning bit roles in the film I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) and the TV series Miami Vice.
Rock was a cast member of the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1993. He and other new cast members Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and David Spade became known as the Bad Boys of SNL. In 1991, he released his first comedy album, Born Suspect and won acclaim for his role as a crack addict in the film New Jack City. His tenure on SNL gave Rock national exposure. (Rock has hosted SNL four times: in 1996, 2014, 2020 and 2024.)
With plans to leave Saturday Night Live after the 1992–93 season, Rock was effectively "fired" from the show. Beginning that fall, he appeared in six episodes of the predominantly African American sketch show In Living Color as a special guest star. The show was canceled a month after he arrived. Rock then wrote and starred in the low-budget comedy CB4, which made $18 million against its budget of $6 million. He signed on as client of 3 Arts Entertainment.
Rock headlined his first HBO comedy special in 1994, titled Big Ass Jokes, as part of HBO Comedy Half-Hour. His second special, 1996's Bring the Pain, made Rock one of the most acclaimed and commercially successful comedians in the industry. Rock won two Emmy Awards for the special and gained large critical acclaim. A controversial part of the special was "Niggas vs. Black People".
For his much-publicized role as a commentator for Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect during the 1996 Presidential elections, he earned another Emmy nomination. Rock also was the voice for the "Lil Penny" puppet who was the alter ego to basketball star Penny Hardaway in a series of Nike shoe commercials from 1994 to 1998, and hosted the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. Rock's first music video was for his song "Your Mother's Got a Big Head" from his album Born Suspect. Rock also made videos for his songs "Champagne" from Roll With the New and "No Sex (In the Champagne Room)" from Bigger & Blacker.
Rock later had two more HBO comedy specials: Bigger & Blacker in 1999, and Never Scared in 2004. Articles relating to both specials called Rock "the funniest man in America" in Time and Entertainment Weekly. HBO also aired his talk show, The Chris Rock Show, which gained critical acclaim for Rock's interviews with celebrities and politicians. The show won an Emmy for writing. His television work has won him a total of three Emmy Awards and 15 nominations. By the end of the decade, Rock was established as one of the preeminent stand-up comedians and comic minds of his generation. During this time, Rock also translated his comedy into print form in the book Rock This! and released the Grammy Award-winning comedy albums, Roll with the New, Bigger & Blacker and Never Scared. Rock's fifth HBO special, Kill the Messenger, premiered on September 27, 2008, and won him another Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety or music program.