Chris Rock said the royal family sharing “concerns” about the skin color of Meghan Markle’s first-born son was not “racism,” but rather typical “in-law” behavior.
The comedian, 58, took aim at the Duchess of Sussex with a series of jokes in his new Netflix comedy special “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” which was filmed in front of an audience in Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday. In a first for Netflix, the special aired live on the platform.
Rock began the bit by discussing people who he believes victimize themselves.
“Everybody trying to be a victim,” Rock said. “Meghan Markle, seems like a nice lady, just complaining. I was like ‘Didn’t she hit the light-skin lottery?'”
After accusing Meghan of knowingly marrying into a family with a long history of racism, Rock said some examples she has given about racism within the royal family aren’t actually racist.
“It’s the royal family! They’re the original racists. They invented colonialism,” Rock said. “Some of the shit she went through wasn’t racism, it was just some in-law shit.”
Rock went on to reference when Meghan told Oprah Winfrey during her bombshell sit-down interview in 2021 that members of the royal family had “concerns and conversations” about how dark her son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor’s skin would be before he was born.
“In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, we have in tandem the conversation of he won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title, and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born,” Meghan told Winfrey, who appeared stunned.
Rock went on to say that the royals asking about Archie’s skin color isn’t racist because Black people ask the same questions.
“That’s not racist because even Black people want to know how brown the baby going to be,” he said.
