Chris Rock built a very strong bond with his family, especially his father. The comic looked up to his dad, Julius Rock. As he told Gayle King, he even wanted to follow in Julius’ footsteps and become a truck driver. Julius died in 1988, and understandably, the loss was hard on Chris. “When your dad dies, you know you’re alone,” Chris told Rolling Stone. “And there is something about your dad dying that makes you go, ‘What’s the point?'”
He experienced something of a worldview shift. “After I lost my dad, I realized that none of us should take things too seriously, because everything except death works itself out,” he said during an Oprah interview. “Everything. No matter what happens or how difficult things become, you will eventually feel better.”
Chris has taken some of the lessons his father instilled in him and tried to carry them into his adult life. “My father kept me from going to jail,” he said during a CBS interview. “I wasn’t a criminal or anything,” he clarified, adding that his dad just made sure he was hanging out with kids who wouldn’t be a bad influence. Besides that, Rock explained that the most important thing his dad taught him was to be on time. “There’s no such thing as early,” he laughed.
