Chris Rock Is Facing Backlash After Revealing That He Once Refused To Pay For A Lawyer For A Wrongly Convicted Friend
by Leyla Mohammed · BuzzFeedPosted on Oct 5, 2026 UTC
Last week, Chris Rock appeared on the New York Times’s The Interview podcast.
During the wide-ranging chat, Chris told host David Marchese about his past refusal to fund legal counsel for a wrongfully convicted friend.
The case in question involved Roger Logan, the brother of one of Chris’s childhood best friends. Roger was convicted in 1997 for a fatal shooting in Brooklyn, and spent 17 years behind bars — despite being innocent. He was exonerated without a lawyer in 2014 and reached a $3.75 million settlement with New York City.
Reflecting on his regret over his decision not to fund Roger’s legal fees, Chris recalled, “A guy named Roger Logan who I grew up with…he was one of my best friend’s brothers who went to jail for 19 years for a murder he didn't commit. His brother used to plead with me to pay for a lawyer for Roger, and I never did it.”
“I always had, like, a no lawyer thing because a lawyer is, like, an open-ended thing. Like, I'll pay your mortgage. I'll put whatever…I always stay out of lawyers because it's so open-ended, and it still messes with me. I had the means to help him, and I didn't. I don't know if we could have got him out or not,” he added.
Chris’s remarks have since sparked heavy backlash online, with one person questioning, “What good is money if you can't use it to help the ones you love.”
“Having the ability to help but choosing not to, that's something else. All that good doesn't mean much when you can turn a blind eye to sending an innocent person to prison. That's no fucking joke,” someone wrote. Another person echoed, “Jesus Christ. What a fucked up thing to admit publicly. He could have utilized his wealth and access to decent attorneys — and accountants/financial advisors — to set up a legal defense fund for the man, and started it off with a one-time, no strings attached healthy donation of whatever he was comfortable giving… There are SO many ways he could have gone about helping without directly paying for an attorney for years and years as the case made its way through the courts.”
One baffled user said, “Some things you just need to keep to yourself or tell a therapist, not the internet.” Someone agreed, “Like, why even volunteer this information? Nothing good can possibly come of telling people this lmao.”
“This is something you tell your therapist not the world,” another user echoed.
But on the flip side, some people came to Chris’s defense. “Did you hear the interview? It’s a very honest story about how he helped many people in everything except legal. Legal stuff made him nervous because of his race. He made mortgage payments for people in trouble, and helped in other ways as well, but no lawyers,” someone wrote.
“I’m reluctantly understanding what he’s saying here. I’m married to an attorney and unfortunately litigation has no predictable ‘end,’” another user added. “If you’re paying someone’s mortgage, there’s a total amount. If they totally screw you, maybe you’re looking at half a million dollars. A lawsuit? Could be 100K. Could be 10 million. You really don’t know. Depends on the case, depends on the lawyer, depends on appeals. There’s very valid reasons for this.”