GQ’s Zach Baron sits down with Chris Rock at the GQ offices in New York City, and talks about his second act, overcoming the addiction that led to his divorce, and breaking past Eddie Murphy’s shadow
Chris Rock is taking a hard look at the habits and failures that followed him long after he became one of comedy’s biggest stars. Rock admitted he spent years watching pornography and said he stopped five or six years ago. Rock described quitting pornography as one part of a longer attempt to understand his behaviour and take responsibility for the damage it caused.
The unusually personal interview arrives as Chris Rock returns to filmmaking with Misty Green, a movie he wrote and directed. The comedy centers on a troubled actress whose former mentor casts her in a career-saving role, forcing both characters to deal with an old relationship and years of unresolved tension. The project puts Rock behind the camera again while his own comments reveal a man still examining what happened offstage. He did not excuse the choices that damaged his marriage or claim therapy erased them. Instead, he described recovery as continuing work, even after fame, divorce and public embarrassment forced those failures into view.