Actor-comedian Chris Rock tweeted Sunday that he has COVID-19. “Trust me, you don’t want this. Get vaccinated,” he urged.
Rock told Jimmy Fallon in May that he had gotten the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meaning his current case would be a breakthrough instance of coronavirus.
He joked to Fallon, “You know, I skipped the line. I didn’t care. I used my celebrity, Jimmy,” he told Fallon. “I was like, ‘Step aside, Betty White. Step aside, old people. Kiss my ass! I did ‘Pootie Tang.’ Let me on the front of the line.’”
“That’s the food stamps of vaccines,” he joked about the Johnson & Johnson shot. Comparing it to the movie “Titanic,” he said, “I was like Billy Zane on the Titanic. Leo died! Billy Zane lived to see another day. I don’t want to be Leo at the bottom of the ocean. Billy Zane got another woman after that! You don’t want to be Leo. Well, in real life you want to be Leo.”
The actor, 56, recently starred in “Saw” sequel “Spiral” and will appear in David O. Russell’s next movie, a period film which shot in Los Angeles in early 2021. The still-untitled film is set to be released next year.
Hey guys I just found out I have COVID, trust me you don’t want this. Get vaccinated.
— Chris Rock (@chrisrock) September 19, 2021
In a January interview with Gayle King, Rock said “Let me put it this way: Do I take Tylenol when I get a headache? Yes. Do I know what’s in Tylenol? I don’t know what’s in Tylenol, Gayle. I just know my headache’s gone. Do I know what’s in a Big Mac, Gayle? No. I just know it’s delicious.”
While the COVID vaccines do not completely prevent infection, vaccinated individuals have a far greater chance of having milder infections and not requiring hospitalization. Nearly all deaths due to COVID-19 have been in unvaccinated people.