Chris Rock grew up in Brooklyn, the son of a teacher and a truck driver, and had 7 siblings. He started doing stand up when he was 19, and became a cast member on SNL in 1990. After leaving SNL in 1993, he found success in standup, winning multiple Emmy awards for his HBO standup specials. Additionally, Rock has appeared in and written many movies, such as Down to Earth, The Longest Yard, and Madagascar.
Despite being one of the funniest people on the planet today, Chris Rock was not very popular as a kid. Rock was bused to schools in predominantly white areas of Brooklyn, where he was one of if not the only black kid at the school. At these schools that he attended, Rock endured a lot of bullying. The bullying started in 2nd grade, when he was small as a kid, and he talked about how kids would push him down stairs, spit on him, kick him, call him the n word, and just treated him terribly. It eventually got so bad that when he was in high school, his parents took him out of his high school and had him move back to a school in his neighborhood.
Rock actually ran into one of his bullies last year, and he handled it well. He didn’t try to get revenge, or show him up, he just said “Hey man, I hope you’re doing well. Take care.” Rock has also talked about how bullying shaped him and made him who he is. Bullying was “the defining moment of my life … it made me who I am.” He was able to persevere through bullying, and get where he is today, in a lot better place than his bullies. He is open about what happened, because it was a terrible, but important part of his life.
Further Information
https://www.bet.com/article/jl12bw/chris-rock-bullying-made-me-who-i-am