Christopher Julius Rock II, portrayed by Terry Crews, is one of the main characters in Everybody Hates Chris. Julius was inspired by Chris Rock's real-life father, Julius Rock, who passed away in 1988.
Biography[]
Christopher Julius Rock II was born and raised during the Civil Rights Movement. He was raised alongside six brothers, two of them being Louis and Ryan Rock. Louis was always more talented and ended up becoming much more successful than Julius, making him very insecure and causes him to try looking good for or otherwise outdoing him whenever he visits. Around Christmas time, Julius' father would call the police and claim the house got robbed to get an insurance payout to afford gifts.
Sometime in the late '60s, Julius met his future wife Rochelle in a club. Rochelle found Julius attractive but considered the design of his socks ridiculous. Nonetheless, the two became a couple, which made Julius consider his tacky pair of socks "lucky". Julius and Rochelle ended up conceiving their first child accidentally, after Julius bought a faulty condom from Risky. They gave birth to a boy, of whom they named after him; Christopher Julius Rock III. In 1970, Julius was flat broke and desperately needed money. He decided to get a credit card, of which he used some of the money to buy a ring for Rochelle, then marrying her. In 1971, they welcomed their second son, Andrew, and in 1973, they had their last child and only daughter, Tonya.
Julius works two jobs, one of them being a newspaper delivery man, and will often pick up odd jobs to help keep afloat. His previous jobs paid so poorly that he didn't even make $25 until he was 30 years old, and the family lived in a housing project until 1982. With his new job, he was able to move the family to Bedford-Stuyvesant, which was still a dangerous, poor neighborhood, but they became the owners of an apartment building they occasionally rent out.
Personality[]
Julius' personality is in direct contrast to his hulking appearance (and the typical Terry Crews character). A good way to describe him is as a gentle giant; he is easy to get along with, calm, and fairly quiet. He usually just wants to be left to his own devices, mostly due to how hard he works, stressing over keeping his family afloat, and juggling his hysterical wife and rambunctious children. Despite the dysfunction, he loves his family and he works as hard as he does to keep them cared for.
On top of his worrywart traits, Julius is also somewhat insecure on an emotional level, thanks to his younger brother Louis being much more successful, charismatic, and talented than him. Whenever Louis stops by, Julius takes efforts to show him up, or impress him by buying things he wouldn't otherwise buy.
Julius shows an amazing economic mind and is excellent with numbers and costs. He can determine something's expense down to the cents simply by looking at it. This is partially due to his cheapness, being someone who works two jobs for not a lot of money and just barely makes ends meet. This trait occasionally puts him at odds with his family, especially Rochelle, who has a snobby, expensive taste and is often not working herself, while the kids often want some sort of new entertainment or other superficial thing typical of children.
Julius has a love for unhealthy food, namely red meats, fried chicken in particular, and hates most healthier food. He will usually eat typical mealtime vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and beans with his dinners but can't stand the thought of a meal without meat. This poor diet naturally comes at the cost of his health, where he often gets the gout and high blood pressure, certainly not helped by his mounting stress over his family, jobs, and paying the bills. When Rochelle forces him to diet, he is visibly dismayed over having to eat salad and being denied his comfort food. When Julius claims that Rochelle is stressing him out, she cooks him up a buffet of horrifically unhealthy, fried food, which gives him joy.
Julius occasionally shows a softer side in which he is unashamed to watch The Young and the Restless and to sing and dance, as he recites Gloria Gaynor's hit single "I Will Survive" when he has the home to himself. He bonds with Rochelle's friends over the soap opera, and gets genuinely angry at Tonya for once after she accidentally tapes over his recording. There is also his unconventional phobia of rabbits, caused by watching Night of the Lepus in 1972. He hid this phobia for as long as he could, as he considered it embarrassing for a man of his age and stature.
Appearance[]
Julius is a very tall, muscular man, thanks to being portrayed by Terry Crews. Crews' chiseled physique is hidden as much as possible on the show to sell the illusion that while Julius does a lot of manual labor, he suffers from a poor diet of unhealthy, cheap food. To do this, Crews is often dressed up in baggy clothing, and is rarely seen with his shirt or any sort of jacket or uniform on.
Julius is completely bald with a goatee. Back in the '70s, atypical of the decade, he had an afro, but as the stress of raising children set in, he steadily lost his hair, "a hair falling out for every bill he got", in Chris Rock's words.
He has a very modest sense of fashion, dressing in very "dad-like" clothing when off the clock. The most eccentric taste he has is his pair of "lucky socks", a hilariously tacky yellow-and-red pair of socks that he considers lucky due to wearing it the night he met his wife. He didn't have a matching pair of socks until he was 29. His muted fashion sense could also be caused by his cheapness, as he is visibly peeved when Rochelle decides to splurge into her savings to get Chris some expensive clothes for Picture Day.
Family[]
- Unnamed parents
- Ryan Rock (younger brother)
- Louis Rock (younger brother)
- Four other brothers
- Rochelle Rock (wife)
- Gene (father-in-law; deceased)
- Maxine (mother-in-law)
- Uncle Mike (brother-in-law)
- Charlotte (sister-in-law)
- Mousey (aunt-in-law)
- Chris Rock (eldest son)
- Drew Rock (youngest son)
- Tonya Rock (daughter)
Episodes[]
As an immediate member of the Rock family, Julius has appeared in every episode of Everybody Hates Chris.
Trivia[]
- There is a continuity error in "Everybody Hates Superstition": the episode claims that Julius met Rochelle in a club in 1970, but Chris turned 13 in 1982, which would make his birth year 1969.
- Julius' favorite color is blue.
- Julius is mentioned to be the oldest of many siblings, although only two of them, his brothers Louis and Ryan, would appear on the show. This is in direct contrast to Rochelle, whose entire immediate family appears often.
- Julius is a talented painter.
- Despite working two jobs throughout the entire series, he is almost always only seen in his newspaper delivery uniform over his security uniform.