Chris Rock threw a few verbal jabs at the royals during his Selective Outrage special on Saturday night
Chris Rock earned some laughs at the expense of Meghan Markle and the royals over the weekend.
During his new Netflix special, Chris Rock: Selective Outrage, the comedian, 58, unloaded a few jokes about Meghan, 41, and her in-laws, at one point claiming that "some of that s--- she went through was not racism," but rather what he called "in-law s---."
He later called the royal family the "OGs of racism" and
"Sugarhill Gang of racism" during the Saturday night special — claiming that
they "invested in slavery like it was Shark Tank."
"Sometimes it's just some in-law s---," Rock said on the
special of Meghan. "Because she's complaining, I'm like, 'What the f--- is
she talking about? 'They're so racist, they wanted to know how brown the
baby was going to be...' I'm like, 'That's not racist,' cause' even Black
people want to know how brown the baby gon' be. S---. We check behind them
ears."
The segment about Meghan and the royals began when Rock claimed
that "everyone is trying to be the victim, including people who know g--damn
well they're not victims." After mentioning Meghan specifically, he said
that she "seems like a nice lady, just complaining."
"Like,
didn't she hit the light-skinned lottery," Rock asked. "And she's still
going off complaining?"
Rock continued, saying he understood
Meghan's "dilemma."
"Black girl trying to be accepted by
her white in-laws," Rock said. "Oh, it's hard. It's so hard, it's very hard
— but it ain't as hard as a white girl trying to be accepted by her Black
in-laws. Now, that s--- is really hard."
"If you Black, and you
wanna be accepted by your white in-laws, then you need to marry a
Kardashian," he later continued. "Because they accept everybody. Kris Jenner
is like the Statue of Liberty."
A representative for the couple did not immediately respond to
PEOPLE's request for comment.
Rock's special comes two years
after Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021 when she claimed that
there were "concerns and conversations about how dark" her son Archie's skin
would be "when he's born." In January, while promoting his book Spare in an
interview with ITV's Tom Bradby, Prince Harry was asked if the incident was
"essentially racist," and he replied that he wouldn't describe the incident
as such, "not having lived within that family."
"The difference between racism and unconscious bias... the two
things are different," Harry, 38, continued. "Once it's been acknowledged or
pointed out to you as an individual, otherwise an institution, that you have
unconscious bias, you, therefore, have an opportunity to learn and grow from
that... otherwise, unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism."
Still, Rock wasn't afraid to label the family racist
himself in his new special, when he argued that Meghan was "acting all dumb
like she didn't know nothing. Going on Oprah, 'I didn't know, I had no idea
how racist they were.' It's the royal family! You didn't Google those
motherf-----s? What the f--- is she talking about, she didn't know?"
"The
f---? It's the royal family, they're the original racists," he continued.
"They invented colonialism. They're the OGs of racism. They're the Sugarhill
Gang of racism. Like, 'a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip hip
hop-a don't stop — the racism.'"
The U.K. generated immense wealth from the slave trade
before it was outlawed by the British Parliament in 1807. Slavery itself was
later made illegal in the U.K. in 1833 through the Slavery Abolition Act. In
recent years, the royal family has acknowledged Britain's historic role in
the trans-Atlantic slave trade, like when Prince William expressed "profound
sorrow" in 2022, before stopping short of an apology. His father, King
Charles (then Prince Charles), denounced the "appalling atrocity of slavery,
which forever stains our history," in a 2021 speech he made in Barbados when
the island nation removed Queen Elizabeth as head of state and swore in its
first president.
Elsewhere during Rock's stand-up special,
the comedian joked about that controversial Will Smith Oscars slap nearly
one year later. Near the end of the show, Rock addressed the Oscars more
in-depth, saying he's "not a victim, baby; you'll never see me on Oprah or
Gayle, crying. You will never see it. Never gonna happen." He joked that he
got "smacked by Suge Smith."
"I got smacked at the f---ing Oscars
by this m----f---er. And people are like, 'Did it hurt?' It still hurts!"
said Rock. He also pointed out Smith's size difference compared to himself,
before poking fun at the actor over the headline-making "entanglement" drama
he had with wife Jada, and the Red Table Talk episode they did together.
