At the premiere of Into the Storm.
Photo: Andrew Toth/FilmMagic
Grizzwald “Grizz” Chapman, who played the eponymous entourage member Grizz on 30 Rock, has died. He was 52. His cousin, Harlem Globetrotter Donte Harrison, announced his death on social media. “Life gave my cousin Grizz Chapman some heavy battles, but he fought them with strength and dignity until the very end,” he wrote. “After years of fighting illness and dialysis, he passed peacefully in his sleep on May 22nd, 2026.” His representative Saideh A. Brown confirmed the news to TMZ, and on Facebook by Kevin Brown, who played Dot Com.
Chapman was working as a bouncer at a strip club when he met Tracy Morgan. He and Brown played Tracy Jordan’s closest entourage members, Grizz and Dot Com. “I worked hard to get the part, and a lot of people think that because Tracy and me are friends, I automatically got the part,” Chapman told CBR in 2012. “What I can say is that Tracy was an integral part in me keeping my job because there were four members of the entourage originally, but NBC came to Tina Fey and Tracy and said they couldn’t pay for all four. So Tracy said we’re gonna keep just two guys, which included me. I made the cut. I worked hard to get there. I worked really hard.”
Chapman discussed the challenges he faced as an actor due to his size. “I get a lot of the time, ‘We don’t know how to market you or you’re too big.’ Or, ‘We have one of you already,’” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012. “But you don’t have one of me already; you don’t have a seven foot, lovable guy. You don’t have that.” Besides 30 Rock, Chapman starred in his own YouTube series, appeared in a movie opposite Method Man, and on shows like The Black List and Blue Bloods.
Chapman suffered from kidney disease, and received a transplant in 2010. He became a spokesperson for the National Kidney Foundation that same year. He is survived by his wife and two children. “A lot of people knew him as the sitcom star from 30 Rock, but we knew the man behind the screen. A good heart, good energy, and somebody who made an impact in this life,” his cousin wrote. “Rest easy, cousin. Your name and legacy will live on forever.”
