Chris Rock Opens Up About Therapy, Racism in Revealing Interview with Gayle King / WATCH

Chris Rock talked about opening up in therapy, racism, the debate over cancel culture, his career and more in a revealing interview with Gayle King for CBS News’ CBS SUNDAY MORNING Sunday, Jan. 3 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

Rock sat down with King, co-host of CBS THIS MORNING, on the patio of his New Jersey home for a wide-ranging interview where he revealed he increased his therapy visits to about seven hours a week after COVID-19 hit the country.

“You have to tell the truth,” he says of those visits. “You have to tell – you have to go into therapy prepared to tell the worst part of yourself every week, you know?”

When asked what the hardest truth was to tell during those sessions, Rock says he doesn’t want to embarrass anyone.

“I don’t want to out anybody, I don’t want to, you know, out myself,” Rock tells King. “But, yeah, just, you know, sometimes I wasn’t kind, and sometimes I wasn’t listening, and sometimes I was selfish, and some, you know, a lot of times. And sometimes, you know, I took advantage of circumstances, and positions, of you know, just everyday things. And you know, it’s ultimately, who do you want to be?”

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What did he learn about himself, King asks?

“I learned that I could be very hard on myself,” Rock says. “Like really, really hard on myself, and I need to relax. And I need to listen, I need to take chances.”

Rock tells King he learned to swim during the pandemic, which was part of working on himself. The 55-year-old divorced father also talks with King about his early career goals, about being pulled over near his home by a police officer, looking forward to the COVID-19 vaccine, being bullied as a child and race in America.

“As I always say, there are no ‘race relations,’” Rock says, adding, “there’s a relationship when things are equal between two people. That’s a relationship. Okay? So when you say ‘race relations,’ that term doesn’t really exist.”

As for the COVID-19 vaccine, Rock says he can’t wait to get it, and addresses the trepidation some in the Black community have about taking the vaccine.

“I’m a Black man,” Rock says. “I’m going to put it this way. Do I take Tylenol when I get a headache? Yes. Do I know what’s in Tylenol? I don’t know what’s in Tylenol, Gayle. I just know my headache is gone. Do I know what’s in a Big Mac, Gayle? No, I just know it’s delicious.”