14 DAY TRIAL // In June 2014, comedian Tracy Morgan was involved in a very serious 6-vehicle crash in New Jersey, caused by an exhausted Walmart truck driver who was speeding. Last month, the company agreed to settle the case out of court, which means Morgan is now free to discuss details of the tragedy.
The accident resulted in 1 death, that of comedy writer James “Jimmy Mack” McNair, who had accompanied Morgan to Delaware for a show. Walmart didn’t just pay Morgan an undisclosed amount of money, but they also promised compensation to McNair’s family.
Morgan talks to Matt Lauer
Available below is Morgan’s first TV interview since the horrific accident. He breaks down and cries 3 times, and he’s clearly struggling to put all his feelings into words.
As he puts it at one point, “bones heal,” but the pain of losing his friend will be there for the rest of his life.
Morgan, accompanied by his attorney, says he doesn’t recall the accident at all but admits he knows everything that happened, because he watched footage of the crash on YouTube. He also kept up to speed with what happened afterwards, including during the 2 weeks he was in a coma.
He’s still very much in pain, admitting that “I have my good days and I have my bad days.” Because of the head injury he sustained in the crash, he experiences blinding headaches and nosebleeds on the regular, and is sometimes affected by memory loss.
Morgan is grateful to be alive
However, more important than the pain is knowing that he survived such a terrible accident. Morgan can’t but feel immense relief thinking that, though he usually travels with his family, this time they stayed put because his 10-month-old baby girl was teething.
He’s positive they would not have survived the crash.
Morgan doesn’t go into the details of the extent of the injuries sustained, and he obviously doesn’t say a peep about the kind of compensation he received. Instead, he praises everyone who helped him make his recovery, from the pilots of the helicopter rushing him to the hospital to the passers-by who helped get him out of the car, and the medical staff at JFK.
He even praises Walmart for the way they handled their end of the deal, by taking “full responsibility” for the crash and agreeing to see that McNair’s family would want for nothing, so he could “rest in peace.”
You can see the full interview below.