After more than 18 years of marriage, Chris Rock and Malaak Compton-Rock are getting divorced. The couple has experienced not only his rise to stardom, but also the births of their two daughters, Lola Simone, 12, and Zahra Savannah, 10.
The Couple
The couple met in 1994 when Rock, 49, crashed an awards show. They were married just two years later, on Nov. 23, 1996.
“She’s changed me,” Rock told the magazine Ebony in 1997. “She’s really calmed me down and centered my life.”
During a 2002 interview with O, The Oprah Magazine, Rock told Oprah he and Compton-Rock (now 45) decided to have their first child after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
“I said to myself, ‘The world’s falling down, and what have I done with my life?’ We’ve been married five years, but we’ve never planned anything– it has always been about today. After September 11, I said, ‘It’s time. Let’s have a baby.’ ”
Previous Separation
While the couple have happy times, Rock admitted in 2004 during an appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, that he had had a sexual encounter outside of the marriage in 1998. He went on explain that he and Compton-Rock had been separated at the time. The woman involved in that sexual encounter went on to claim Rock had fathered her daughter. Later paternity tests revealed that was not true.
The comedian also fought paternity claims in 2007 after a Georgia woman claimed Rock had father her then 13-year-old son. A paternity test also proved that was not true.
Divorce is Long Time Coming
According to a source close to the couple, “This [divorce] was a long time coming. Chris has known it wasn’t salvageable for a while. He was the one to file because he knew it was time to just move forward already.”
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Source: People, Inside Chris Rock’s Marriage, Road to Divorce, December 30, 2014