Janelle James, the first thing that comes up is that she got her big break from Chris Rock. Wrong! Rock did hire her as a comedian on his 2017 “Total Blackout Tour,” but James says that’s as far as it goes. “He’s done a lot,” she says, carefully choosing words to describe someone who is credited too frequently for her rise. “He’s done enough for me.
He didn’t make my career or anything.” She adds, “I was never close with Chris Rock. We went on tour together, and then I didn’t speak to him after that.” And of course, she followed what happened to him at the Oscars, but hasn’t watched his Netflix special.
She doesn’t want to be cornered into talking about him or the slap in interviews like this one. “I want to truthfully be like, ‘I ain’t seen it.
No opinion!’ I don’t want to be involved.” James has more important things to talk about on this day. She’s become a hot commodity in the industry with her Emmy-nominated breakout role on “Abbott Elementary,” the hottest sitcom on network TV.
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