Looking back on his nearly 20-year marriage to Malaak Compton-Rock, Chris Rock acknowledged that his p*rn addiction may have played a role in their split. The 61-year-old comedian admitted that it made him “not a great husband.”
Chris Rock reflects on p*rn use, infidelity and divorce from ex-wife
Speaking to GQ, the stand-up comedian, who is also a familiar face on Saturday Night Live, said, “I was not a great husband. I watched a lot of p*rn. I don’t watch p*rn anymore. I haven’t watched p*rn in five, six years.” The comedian added that he wasn’t “proud” of his past addiction, but described it as “something I had to go through.”
He said, “It’s like you watch a Marvel movie, and the guy, he has to test his powers. You know what I mean? Every Marvel movie, man or woman, they have to test their powers. They’re a**holes. They get these powers, and they’re a**holes, and they’re racing trains, and they’re lifting up ocean liners, and they try to go to the sun, then they crash down because they realize they’re not God. And then they start helping people. I tested my powers. I definitely realized I wasn’t God or anywhere near him, and I was severely humbled, as I should have been.”
He also addressed the effect his divorce had on his work. He pointed to the 12-year break between his 2014 film Top Five and his new A24 project, Misty Green. The Everybody Hates Chris star said, “Nobody has a successful divorce, so that takes time. Then once it’s done, okay, you’re not sitting on the money you had before, so now you got to really make some money. So you go on tour, or two tours. So there was a lot of stand-up. There was a lot of getting my life together.”
Chris and Malaak married in 1996 but separated in 2014 before finalizing their divorce in 2016. The comedian later admitted to cheating on Malaak with three women. The former couple shares two daughters, Zahra Savannah, 22, and Lola Simon, 24. Since their split, Rock appears to have found love again with his girlfriend, Simone Henault.
