Chris Rock took aim at Meghan Markle during his new Netflix comedy special, which aired on Saturday.
Rock said Meghan accused the royal family of racism for things that he does not consider racist.
He said the royals having “concerns” about Meghan’s son’s skin color is “in-law” behavior.
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, seem 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.
He 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.
Neither Meghan nor Prince Harry has named the members of the royal family who they say had concerns about Archie’s skin color. After the Winfrey episode aired, Buckingham Palace released a rare statement on behalf of the late Queen Elizabeth II that said the whole family was “saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been” for the couple.
“The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately,” it continued.
Meghan wasn’t the only public figure that Rock poked fun of during his comedy special. He also notably spent the last segment of his performance discussing Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s relationship and the 2022 Oscars slap, which he said “still hurts.”
