Chris Rock revealed he lets people walk over him because he was bullied as a child and now fears his own anger.
The 57-year-old comedian, who made headlines after being slapped in the face by Will Smith over his Jada Pinkett joke during the 94th Academy Awards, previously opened up about his tough childhood and claimed he was bullied for being small and Black.
During his appearance on the Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade podcast earlier this year, Rock recalled his past experiences with bullying and revealed how they shaped him into the person he now is.
“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 [a] little guy and I was Black. I was getting double bullied,” he said.
One time, as Rock added, he decided to stand up to one of his bullies only to inadvertently put the boy’s life in danger.
“I went home, I put a brick in a book bag – this is like a legendary story in my neighborhood. I swung that s*** 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,” he added.
Since the altercation, Rock has decided to allow people to “walk all over” him in fear of his own outbursts of anger.
“Long story short, from that day on, as my shrink puts it to me, you have been scared to be angry ever since. The guy you saw was bending over backwards to be nice because I was so scared of my anger,” the 57-year-old went on.
“Your friends walk over you, your friends walk over you, your female relationships – everybody just f**** you over.”
Eventually, however, Rock learned how to express his anger without resorting to violence.
“I’m not scared of letting people know how I feel about certain things. 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,” he concluded.
Rock’s confession came just months before his on-stage confrontation with Will Smith during which the A-lister slapped the Academy Awards presenter in the face over his joke about Jada Pinkett’s baldness.
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