Tracy Morgan: ‘I’m a better man’
TRACY Morgan celebrated his first major return to TV more than three years after an accident nearly killed him, saying, “God spared my life that day . . . to bring love and to bring hope.”
The emotional comedian screened his new TBS show, “The Last O.G.,” at The William Vale in Brooklyn for the first time Thursday. Morgan plays a drug dealer who returns to a gentrified Brooklyn after serving 15 years in prison. The comedy also stars Tiffany Haddish and Cedric
the Entertainer. The Cinema Society afterparty at Westlight turned into a heart-tugging affair as he took to the stage with a childhood pal, rapper Busta Rhymes.
Morgan, raised in Brooklyn, got choked up while talking about his recovery from the 2014 Jersey Turnpike crash, which killed his friend, comedy writer James McNair — whom he paid tribute to as “one of the real O.G.s.” Morgan said, “He [Busta] sent me a video just giving me love and hope and that inspired me to get out of that wheelchair and just work harder in therapy.”
Achanged man, Morgan continued, “When we were doing ‘The Last O.G.’ we filmed on the streets in the projects . . . We bring more than just those cameras and those trailers and those lights — to the youth we bring hope, because they see people like me and Tiffany and Cedric right there and they can touch us and we thanked them all the time for allowing us to use their neighbor- hood. And we are ambassadors — we have to be kind to those people and those neighborhoods, because if we are not kind to them someone could get hurt on that set.” He added, “I know why God spared my life that day in that accident. It was to bring love and to bring hope . . . Forget the 49 years of my life; let’s think about the last three. The accident was three years ago, and am I a better man now than I was? The answer is yes!”
Rhymes performed and kept the crowd dancing until late. There were Maura Tierney, Susan Kelechi Watson, Alysia Reiner, Aasif Mandvi, Zadie Smith, Stella Schnabel and “Hamilton” stars Anthony Ramos and Jasmine Cephas Jones.