Tracy Morgan 'Cried' Watching "Dark Side of Comedy "Doc Episode About His Toughest Moments (Exclusive) Julia MooreSat, February 21, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC 0 Tracy Morgan performs live on stage during "Tracy Morgan: No Disrespect" comedy tour at Miramar Cultural Center on August 21, 2022 Johnny Louis/Getty In 2014, Tracy Morgan was involved in a deadly car crash that killed his friend and mentor and left him in a coma for 10 days As he returns to NBC in his new comedy series, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, Morgan tells PEOPLE how his neardeath experience permanently changed his life — and hi...
Tracy Morgan 'Cried' Watching "Dark Side of Comedy "Doc Episode About His Toughest Moments (Exclusive)
Julia MooreSat, February 21, 2026 at 9:00 PM UTC
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Tracy Morgan performs live on stage during "Tracy Morgan: No Disrespect" comedy tour at Miramar Cultural Center on August 21, 2022
Johnny Louis/Getty
In 2014, Tracy Morgan was involved in a deadly car crash that killed his friend and mentor and left him in a coma for 10 days
As he returns to NBC in his new comedy series, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, Morgan tells PEOPLE how his near-death experience permanently changed his life — and his approach to comedy
Morgan also opens up about the 2023 documentary about the accident, part of Vice's Dark Side of Comedy series, which he says was "so accurate" to his experience that he "cried through the whole thing"
Tracy Morgan has no desire to be anything but truthful.
The comedian, 57, leads a brand-new NBC comedy series from Tina Fey and 30 Rock's Robert Carlock, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and his focus remains on bringing laughs and positivity to the world more than a decade after he was involved in a near-fatal car accident.
"When you are on the other side, you appreciate life. I was on the other side for 10 days — in a coma," Morgan tells PEOPLE, getting choked up. "Now I'm doing a good show with some good people."
"When I'm being funny, if you really study me, when I'm being funny and all these other things, I always take a second to remember that — June 14th," he says. "Being in a coma for 10 days. Now I'm here. So the Lord has things for me to do. Take care of my people, take care of my family."
The deadly crash, which killed his friend and mentor James McNair and left him in critical condition, was the focus of a 2023 episode of Vice's Dark Side of Comedy. The episode saw Morgan reflect on how the two-week coma changed his life as he also opened up about his childhood.
"I cried through the whole thing because it was so accurate," he says of the episode. "A lot of people don't want that."
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Watching the episode made him reflective, he says. "It's like, you're walking through your life and you're just realizing, whoa, [that's] how I got here — the bad, the good, the ugly. You got to deal with it. You've got to deal."
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Morgan says he would only ever want a documentary project about his life to be as "real" as possible — and not shy away from the hard stuff.
"I got hit by a truck, so I'd know," he says. "I want everything reported."
The 2014 crash left the comedian a changed man, according to his costars. Fey, 55, told Entertainment Weekly that Morgan is "literally happy to be alive, and that energy is contagious."
"He's thrilled to be able to work and make comedy, and he loves everyone around him," Fey said, as she gushed about how happy she was to be working with him again on The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins.
"Getting to hang out with Tracy between takes, he'll be telling a crazy story, and then the next moment he and I will be embracing, and he's in tears about his gratitude for life," she said. "He's just such a wonderful presence to be around, and I've really missed him."
Tracy Morgan as Reggie Dinkins, Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Tobin in "The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins"
Scott Gries/NBC
In the new NBC comedy, Morgan plays disgraced former football player Reggie Dinkins, who is on a mission to rehabilitate his public image. To do so, he hires an award-winning filmmaker, Arthur Tobin (Daniel Radcliffe), but "in order to earn back the admiration of his fans and the respect of his family, Reggie will also have to confront the ghosts of his past," reads the synopsis.
Along with Morgan and Radcliffe, Erika Alexander, Bobby Moynihan, Precious Way and Jalyn Hall also star in the series.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins premieres Monday, Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: February 21, 2026 at 11:36PM on Source: MARIO MAG
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