Tracy Morgan Says His Near-Fatal Car Crash Changed His Work Ethic
Tracy Morgan is coming out with a Netflix special soon called Staying Alive, and upon reflecting about his incredible near-fatal accident in a car crash, the comedian opens up even more about the aftermath.
“I got hit by a truck, it was a great story. So that’s what happened. I had a story to tell,” he told People magazine. “When anything ever badly happened to me I made it funny and I turned it good. This was a bad thing that happened to me. I wanted to tell my story, but I also want to continue my standup career because all the great things that ever happened to me in my life came through standup. All the great things came through standup. I’m just continuing it. Why would I stop? [The accident] wasn’t going to stop me. As long as I could stand up and grab the mic, I was going to tell my story.”
The accident happened in 2014 when a Walmart truck hit a van carrying him and comic James McNair, who died in the accident.
He continued: “When you look at my earlier work, this is growth. This was me growing a thousand years at the speed of light. I look at my old stuff and then I look at this stuff, and I say, ‘Damn. I’ve grown a lot.’ And that’s what it was. It was a terrible, terrible tragedy and some of my greatest material came out of it to date. I don’t know what’s going to come next, hopefully nothing tragic happens like that. I worked hard to come back. I’m not talking about just standup, I’m talking about getting up out that wheelchair. To get up off that walker, I was working hard. I was working hard when I was in a coma. I have a young daughter, I have a wife and I got sons, I got to be here. I’m a fighter, and I fought. That’s what I did with this standup, I fought to do it right.”