Rosalina "Rochelle" Rock, portrayed by Tichina Arnold, is one of the main characters in Everybody Hates Chris. She is married to Julius Rock and is the mother of Chris, Drew, and Tonya Rock. The character Rochelle was inspired by the real Chris Rock's mother, Rosalie Rock.
Biography[]
Rochelle Rock was born sometime in the late 1940s, as Peaches notes that she was 29 during Gerald Ford's presidency between 1974 and 1977, and when Captain & Tennille were still on the charts. She was born to Eugene and Maxine and raised alongside her brother Michael and sister Charlotte. All her life, her mother Maxine would judge her harshly with a snobby attitude, which ended up being a large toxic influence on her personality. She enjoyed a much more pleasant relationship with her father Gene, though Gene's gambling addiction was something she disapproved of, later strongly prohibiting it when raising her own children. Bearing witness to a lot of her father's gambling and the schemes other gamblers and con artists would pull, she became savvy to them, learning how to spot the telltale signs of a scam and how to beat them at their own games.
In the late '60s, Rochelle and her friend attended a nightclub. They noticed a man with a very tacky pair of socks dancing, of whom the former considered attractive but found his socks ridiculous. Nevertheless, the two met and became a couple. In 1969, they welcomed their first child, Christopher. In 1970, Julius secretly got a credit card to afford a wedding ring for Rochelle; they married sometime after. In 1971, they had their second son, Andrew, and in 1973, they had their last child and only daughter, Tonya.
Personality[]
Rochelle is, as Chris Rock describes, a "ghetto snob", a trait she gets from her overbearing, judgmental mother. Despite being poor, she loves to keep up appearances and has quite the expensive taste. When Ms. Morello donates a bunch of food to her family, she orders Chris to send it all back, as she can't stand the idea that people think they're too poor to afford food. When Ms. Morello comes back on Christmas with a news team and a much bigger package of food, she is livid and yells at Chris. She is also very ashamed to have to use food stamps, as people tend to give her judgmental looks when she uses them; at least, she thinks they do. When Julius stumbles upon $200 worth of food stamps, she hates having to use them, and when Sheila catches her about to use them, she tosses them on the floor and decides to use cash that she was saving for a month's worth of use, causing her to not have money for the electric bill. She doesn't realize until later that Sheila is actually quite fond of using food stamps herself if it means saving money. When the family gets a much larger tax refund than usual, she immediately buys a new couch and a bunch of name brand goods, which eats away at Julius, who is paranoid that the IRS will come asking for the extra money back. Generally, Julius hates Rochelle's sense of pride and luxurious taste, as it just causes him more financial headaches.
In her marriage to Julius, Rochelle wears the pants for most of it. She is the one who pays most of the bills on a "debt system", where they're always a bit late and/or short on payments to balance out their pay schedules. When Julius tries to pay them to the letter, she is frustrated but refuses to tell him about her system until later. Generally, Rochelle has a habit of being rather hysterical and will often close off when feeling slighted, going as far as to be very petty and vindicative to get her point across, which is a trait she displays with many people other than Julius. When Julius claims that Rochelle is contributing to his mounting stress by trying to get him to eat healthier, she decides to distance herself from him and cooks him up a buffet of horrifically unhealthy food, telling him to call an ambulance himself if he has a heart attack, as she "doesn't want to stress [him] out". Rochelle also has a tendency to be jealous and paranoid that Julius may be having an affair, or wants to leave her. When Julius admits to accidentally smacking Sheila on the butt and finding her attractive, she at first appears to be understanding, but she threatens to stab him or someone else if it happens again. Despite their occasional disputes, it's clear that Rochelle loves Julius dearly and he feels the same. They are often found sleeping and cuddling together, kissing, and from a few comments here and there, their sex life is also quite active, as Rochelle makes a remark about how "[her] behind was perfectly clear to [him] last Wednesday" when inquiring about his mix-up of her and Sheila, and when she claims that their anniversary "ain't over" in a flirty tone when she returns home from the Patti LaBelle concert with Sheila, doing a little sexy dance for her husband.
Trivia[]
- "Everybody Hates Superstition" introduces a continuity error where a scene establishes that she met Julius in a club in 1970. Chris turned 13 in 1982, which would make his birth year 1969. In many flashbacks to before or around Chris' birth, their style of fashion is evocative of the '70s.