Wanda Sykes is still thinking about longtime friend Chris Rock calling to apologize for not knowing about her breast cancer diagnosis.
The 62-year-old comedian recalled the conversation while speaking to Vulture’s Good One podcast when host Jesse David Fox asked about a story that captures what their relationship is like.
“We don't talk often, but there are moments,” Sykes admitted near the 22-minute mark in the video linked above. “After it was in the public that I had breast cancer—and this was like I had already finished my treatment post surgery and all that stuff. Chris called me and he was like, ‘I didn't know, man … I'm so sorry you went through that. I didn't know. Ah, I wish I had known.’”
She continued, “I was like, ‘What? What were you going to do, Chris? Come give me a titty massage?’”
After the two got a good laugh, Sykes also told Fox described Rock as “a real friend” and a “real caring guy” whom she feels “protective” of.
That protection was extended to Rock after being slapped by Will Smith at the 2022 Academy Awards following a joke made about Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia. In an interview on the Ellen show that year, Sykes said she “physically felt ill” following the incident.
Sykes defended those comments in an interview with The Breakfast Club earlier this year when asked about the mockery she received for defending Rock.
“I'm like, y'all got to realize I was working that night. And I watched my coworker get popped at work,” Sykes told the morning radio show at the time. “That’s not supposed to happen. I was upset, like, physically upset by that. And then it just even sickened me more watching everybody just sit out there and not react and then to give that man an award afterwards. I was like, ‘I’m done with y’all.’”
According to People, Sykes was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011 and underwent a preventative double mastectomy.
