I'm Tracy Morgan!
I'm handsome.
I can see why I got so many kids.
Tracy Morgan is one of the most
naturally funny people that exists.
I can't breathe, Liz Lemon!
This is my impression of a pregnant woman.
[narrator] The world knows Tracy Morgan
as an off-the-wall...
He didn't have that filter.
I definitely want to get somebody pregnant.
Unpredictable...
-Man! -[Laughing]
[Bird] I'm Brian Fellow! [Tracy] No, you're not!
Comedic genius.
He came in and broke all the rules.
-Get me a soda, bitch! -[Laughing]
He's just so honest.
My name is Tracy Morgan,
or as most of you may know me as...
the other Black guy.
I honestly don't think there's any human being
that has made me belly laugh harder.
Haha, woah!
There's this belief out there that you are
your character on 30 Rock.
No, I'm way more out there.
He was the happening.
And when opportunity meets the happening,
that meteoric rise happens.
What fans may not know is that Tracy's
been a fighter from the day he was born.
His story is not funny.
It was something he had to basically try and survive.
When did you know that comedy was a way out?
Why is a man so driven to escape trauma
hell-bent on self-destruction?
[beep] set up, man!
There was this deep pain, and comedy was the saviour.
Oh my god... Oh my god.
[Tracy] I was dancing with the devil, mama.
[Overlapping voices] Ladies and gentlemen!
You are about to be entertained!
Getting the laugh is the greatest addiction.
They want more of it, they want more of it.
He was getting death threats. It [beep] with your head!
He's out of his skull! That's what took her down.
This is a crazy story.
I'm Hollywood royalty.
People, a lot of people don't know that
I'm a descendant of Clark Gable.
Now this is my second career.
My first career was, uh, porno.
Yeah, they called me 'Manaconda'.
[Laughing]
You can talk to Tracy,
and hear five different stories from this guy.
You said that you're a big fan of the
show 'Khloé & Lamar', is that right?
Yeah, and we just recently found out,
our test results came back, she's my daughter.
-[Laughing] -Khloé is your daughter?
If you hang around this man long enough,
you're gonna hear stories that...
It, it, it's just absolutely material.
The test results just came back from
my biological father.
-Who is he? -Tony Dorsett.
[Laughing] What?
You're related to Charlton Heston?
Chuck Heston. I used to call him 'Uncle Chuck'.
In reality, Tracy was a kid from the projects of
New York's Bed-Stuy neighbourhood.
Inner-city Brooklyn is set up for liquor stores,
churches, drug dealers, and...
danger lurks around the corner.
[Sirens wailing]
Tracy grew up in a very conflicted neighbourhood,
we'll call it.
There was gun violence, there was a lot of
stuff happening out on the streets.
My name is Debra Wilson,
I'm an actress and a comedian,
and I met Tracy originally back in New York City
over two decades ago.
When I was a kid in the 80s,
and crack was rampant, you know,
everybody was trying to sell it to get money.
I'm Anthony Bozza, and I co-wrote
'I Am the New Black' with Tracy Morgan.
Tracy's father was a Vietnam vet,
and when he was over there, he got addicted to heroin.
Like so many other vets, he had tremendous PTSD.
Nightmares, mental breakdowns of
all kinds in the house.
So, Tracy's parents split up.
When Tracy's dad starts to get clean,
Tracy leaves his mom's house
to move in with his father.
My mom did the best she could with five kids,
but I needed my dad.
He's the only one that could show me how to be a man.
I couldn't learn nothing from my friends.
They knew what I knew.
But I could learn from my father and his friends.
And he was funny.
Tracy's dad keeps him on track and away from
the influences of the street.
Were you an athlete or something?
Yeah, I was a running back.
What was your sport?
Football, and track and field.
I thought I was Carl Lewis.
No, I ran that fast running from the bullies, you know?
Just being bullied.
And then I learned how to be funny,
so that kept the bullies off my back.
But that will all change when his dad becomes seriously ill.
He got HIV from using dirty needles.
When his dad started getting sick,
Tracy dropped out of high school completely to
take care of him in his final years.
My dad died in 1987 to AIDS,
and something snapped.
So he does what so many others in his position,
living in, you know, the projects did.
I used to sell crack.
Back in the days, everybody would.
Either you was using it or you were selling it.
Either way, you got swept up in it.
Most of the time on the corner,
Tracy would just sit there and make fun of people
and do a little stand-up set.
I would sell them the crack and then be like,
"You know this going to kill you, right"?
[Laughing]
I just started doing comedy all around the hood.
I was always funny, but I just started
doing comedy though.
He needed a rock, he needed someone
to point him in the direction of success.
♪
He met Sabina, who was a few years older,
and she already had two children,
and they started living together and raising the kids.
I don't believe Tracy knew how to connect the dots,
in terms of, how do I help my family?
If you look at the odds stacked against this kid...
Vietnam vet father with PTSD, heroin addiction,
dying of AIDS...
left high school, got married young,
and has nothing really else but this innate comic ability.
There are certain people in life that have an X factor.
They just don't know exactly how their future and
their X-factor will meet.
Tracy wonders if being funny is
his ticket to a better life.
My boy, Tracy Morgan!
[Cheering]
The Uptown Comedy Club was a place that myself and
my brother Andre created as a venue
for the young Black comics to perform,
because they were not getting
adequate opportunities to succeed.
But your ass is so Black, if they put you
into bottles, you'd be a damn Pepsi.
[Laughing]
Who is Tracy Morgan? Is that a loaded question?
No. [Laughing] My name is Flex Alexander,
and I first met Tracy Morgan at the
Uptown Comedy Club in Harlem.
You so fat, when you stepped on a scale
it said, "To be continued."
[Laughing]
First thing I saw was this chunky kid come in with
this hat with a propeller on the top,
doing jokes about the hood and baby mamas.
You know what? You talk too much.
-What, what? -What you wanna do?
Even starting out in the early days,
there was an effortlessness to it,
because Tracy was always himself.
Is this your best man?
Best man? It's my main man.
That's what I'm sayin'!
He was the first one I saw that brought the upbringing
that I knew about to the stage.
Man, you crazy, man. We from the hood.
We can't be hit more times.
Even myself being from the Bronx,
I was kind of afraid to go into those dark places,
and he wasn't.
He just talked about it straight up.
Fast forward to,
we are on the day of shooting a TV show,
and a young comic by the name of Chris Tucker,
he was on the come up.
He missed his flight, and we had an open spot.
And I say, "Yo, Tray. Do you think you could
give me a hilarious four minutes"?
And he looked at me and he said, with confidence,
"Yo, Kev, you know me. I got, I got you Kev."
Y'all want to see my version of Michael Jackson
from the projects?
[Audience] Yes!
And he went on that stage,
and did this Michael Jackson,
and he shook it up.
He did those things that a kid would do in the house
when they're seven,
and it was hilarious!
When I first saw Tracy start patting his stomach,
you know, I just said, "This boy is wild!
I gotta put him on the show."
♪
Martin was a guy from the hood, also.
And Martin was huge.
Hustle Man is in the house.
I was like, "This is brilliant."
That was somebody he talked about
on stage from the block, you know,
somebody who's always selling something.
I got food stamps, I got incense,
I got a Greyhound bus in the parking lot.
Martin Lawrence gave me a shot when he put me
in front of this national audience.
So now he's moving on an echelon
that is like an escalator.
And in the entertainment industry in general,
once you're on it, it's taking you on a ride.
Behind the scenes,
Tracy is using alcohol to calm his nerves.
It's a habit he's able to keep under the radar
along with some troubling symptoms...
pain in his legs, headaches, and mood swings.
What you, what you selling Hustle Man?
I got a special on some free-range chicken.
But he's too focused on his career to
pay attention to why.
What the hell is free-range chicken, man?
It means for me it was free.
For you it's gonna cost you in the range of $15.
[Laughing]
He didn't take any particular steps to make it happen.
He was the happening, and when opportunity
meets the happening,
that meteoric rise happens.
Hi, my name is Tracy Morgan.
I'd like to introduce you to one of my friends.
Soon he's auditioning for the
ultimate springboard to fame...
Saturday Night Live.
I was like, "This guy, yo, he must be smart, man.
He must be a intellect." Then the cat was like-
[Inhaling], "Nah, Drake, nah.
I think he a Scorpio.
I'm on Saturday Night Live, and Lorne Michaels
pulled me in his room and he goes, "Jim,
what do you think about Tracy Morgan"?
I didn't want to be too obvious,
but I was like, "Oh my God!
I didn't want to go there like, "You gotta hire him, Jim"!
I went, "I honestly don't think
there's any human being in the world
that has made me belly laugh harder,
being raw and unfiltered
and completely natural."
It's Saturday Night Live!
With Tracy Morgan...
Soon as they told me, I went right back to
the projects and told, like, my boy Supreme.
I was like, "Yo, I got Saturday Night Live."
And they was like, "What! We made it"!
[Laughing]
I think it's obvious that if anyone gets on SNL,
it's gonna be your big break.
"Mom, Tracy got Saturday Night Live!
Tray, my mom said pick up a couch."
[Laughing]
♪
[Tracy] Saturday Night Live was like a university for funny.
But I felt like Noah, who had built his ark,
and the first thing I wanted to do is get my family to
higher grounds, 'cause I knew the floods was gonna come.
[Interviewer] What were the floods?
[Tracy] More gunfire, more violence.
Tracy's sudden good fortune can't prevent what comes next.
He wakes up one morning completely blind.
He discovers he's been living with untreated diabetes.
It was already pretty far along,
if it was at that level.
♪
But his fragile health takes a backseat to surviving
his scary new reality on SNL.
[Tracy] I was coming from a different world.
I was coming from a world of Black people,
and knowing how to make them laugh,
and I was out of my comfort zone.
-85th and Columbus. -You got it.
When he first arrived at SNL, he was a very shy kid
from the projects of New York City.
In the beginning, he's the one who felt insecure,
like, "I don't know if I belong here."
Hello America, my name is Tracy Morgan.
As most of you might know, the other Black guy.
Changes were happening so rapidly,
that he was trying to adjust in a new cultural community,
a new comedy community.
And so in a space like that, the jokes that you tell about
growing up in the Bronx, growing up around
gun violence, growing up around drugs and
all of these things, is not necessarily relatable
to other people...
especially white people.
I mean these people are nice and everything, man,
but sometimes I feel a little culturally isolated.
Right, right, right.
Even when you're a cast member at SNL,
there's no guarantee you're gonna see much air time.
It's highly competitive every week,
and he wasn't really sure how he could get the
kind of skits written where he could shine.
-Pissing me off, man! -[Laughing]
I imagine at the end of each day,
the substances come in to help numb some of that
hyper-vigilance that's going on from just
being at work day to day.
So, of course because of commitment,
he's going to press junkets, and events, and signings.
They're huge!
He's also entering a world where bad habits
can become a norm.
He kept drinking, and kept living his lifestyle.
Every single thing that he was putting in his body was
what a doctor would tell you not to do if you had diabetes.
And, ah... he just ignored it.
♪
It's Saturday Night Live!
For Tracy Morgan, entering the world of
Saturday Night Live is a massive culture shock.
You have come to the right place. Behold!
And he's working amongst Harvard Lampoon
graduates and comedians, almost all white.
I don't think there was a Black writer
on the show at the time.
They didn't know how to write for him.
And I don't blame them for that. You know,
someone who came from Harvard and Yale,
what do they know about drive-by shootings?
I also feel Tracy didn't want to
exploit that side of him.
Oh hey, hi Tracy.
Tracy always was his authentic self.
It was a matter of how they're gonna write for me,
or are they gonna just see me as a stereotype?
And if the writing that's gonna come back from
white writers is all so stereotypical that it is
askewed view of the way I grew up,
and a skewed view of what I can do.
-What's up, baby? -What's happening, homie?
Like imagine, you feel like you gotta carry
the whole load for, for Blacks.
It's not, you know, gonna be all that comfortable.
[Tracy] When I first got to Saturday Night Live,
I thought people was like,
isolating me and all of that stuff.
Stop laughing at me!
When other Black people come up to me and say,
"So you work at Saturday Night Live"?
And I go, "Yeah"!
And then they say, "So, what you do there"?
And I say, "I'm Tracy Morgan.
I'm the guy who smiles real big at the Goodnights."
Here's me and my big scene with Sylvester Stallone.
Oh, oh, oh!
Me with Tom Hanks, that's my man.
-[Laughing] -Oh, man!
He was so under-utilized.
And he was falling down the ranks.
And he wasn't really sure how he could get the
kind of skits written where he could shine.
Man I'm sorry, the pimp chat got cut.
Oh don't sweat it, man, I'll do it next week, man.
I'm just gonna say Goodnights tonight.
Oh, cool.
I think he struggled for a while,
thinking that maybe he had turned his back on the
community that bred him, and kind of who he
really is as a comic and as a person.
♪
Tracy comes in, "Jim, I bought a
big, expensive truck."
He's like, "Man, I went through the hood,
and they popped my tires"!
And he was really bothered by that.
He was really hurt by that.
He goes, "I was showing them that you can make it."
We think we leave somewhere,
we're gonna come back and jump right back in.
But life went on without you.
So, coming back and seeing, "Maybe I wasn't
as important to people as I thought"?
It's a crushing feeling of grief.
It's not knowing who I am,
because my old community doesn't embrace me,
and the new community doesn't embrace me.
These are strange times.
One point, he was so low that he kind of broke down.
[Interviewer] Did you feel like you were failing?
[Tracy] Yeah. There were times where you weren't in.
But I thought it was 'cause I was Black,
they wasn't putting me in the sketches.
Then, an exchange with Lorne Michaels
changes everything.
Lorne told him directly,
"I didn't choose you because you're Black.
I chose you because you're funny."
[Tracy] He let me know that I was here with Will Ferrell
'cause I'm just as funny as him.
[Anthony] That was a turning point for him.
He certainly wasn't gonna let this
wonderful opportunity pass him by.
[Singing] Dum, dum, dum...
The second year we asked to be in a room together,
so we shared an office.
Me and Tracy would bounce off each other nonstop.
-Yikes! -Woah!
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
There was nothing more beautiful than
watching him in his element, crushing.
What the hell is going on here?
I'm sorry! Don't be scared, I'm sorry.
-We're sorry! -We're sorry!
[Tracy] I realized that I had to put my guards down,
and let the writers see my flaws...
to make fun of them.
And that became my process.
Tracy what'd you do last night?
I just chilled out with the homeboys,
you know what I'm saying?
Busted down a couple of bottles of Cristal at
the club, drove around in my baby blue Jaguar.
-Typical bad boy stuff. -Cool, cool.
What about you, Dratch? What you did last night?
Um, I went to this Brazilian restaurant on the
Upper West Side with a couple Dartmouth friends.
Um... you should go, they have really good flan.
Yeah, I don't know what that is.
[Laughing]
He sort of found ways to talk to some of the....
the, the writers.
Thanks, Tina. You are looking good as always.
[Tracy] Tina Fey was basically the first one to go,
"Wait a minute, this dude is funny,
but you gotta let him be him."
I got this character, one is called
'Sugarfoot Jones', and 'Lay Lady Lay'.
[Laughing]
You can't be afraid. Yeah, he's edgy.
He's from the ghetto! But let's let him be him.
And it worked.
Nah! [Laughing]
Tina Fey recognized my funny.
That's when you started seeing Judge Judy and
all those things.
-Yes, I am a lawyer. -[Laughing]
I think the character everyone remembers best
from Tracy on SNL is 'Brian Fellows'.
-I'm Brian Fellows. -[Laughing]
Hello Brian. I want you to meet my porcupine friend,
his name is Willie.
-That rat needs a haircut. -[Laughing]
I think Brian Fellows became a hit because it was what I
talk about with Tracy being authoritarian and crazy.
That's the biggest dog I've ever seen.
[Laughing]
What's wrong with that dog?
-I'm Brian Fellow! -That bird is a liar.
[Laughing]
-I'm Brian Fellow! -No, you're not!
Hey! I...
When the cameras aren't rolling,
Tracy decides to blow off steam.
You like drinking? Yeah, you like drinking.
Who the hell don't?
Usually during the week, and we'd be like,
"Hey, you know what, we're having writer's block.
Let's go take a walk. Let's go have a beer."
I'll never forget this.
I don't know what bar we were in.
There was nobody in there, like...
five people, tops.
And next thing you know, "I'm starting to feel,
I'm starting to feel it"!
And then his shirt comes off,
and he's slapping his belly.
"Somebody gonna get pregnant up in here.
Somebody gonna get pregnant"!
I was mortified,
but yet it was, it was hilarious.
Once he unleashed it,
he would walk around the hallways.
I definitely want get somebody pregnant.
I want her to get pregnant, have my daughter.
Alright.
That became a battle cry: "Somebody gonna get pregnant!"
Everyone would say that.
Somebody gonna get pregnant.
Somebody gonna get pregnant while I'm in town.
Two days, watch.
Tracy's catchphrase, it's said with such confidence,
but it's also like...
you're talking about Betty White.
She can't have kids.
I whipped out my belly and went like this.
[Laughing]
That right there is a mating call.
It was never not funny.
Tinga-linga-linga-ling! Dinner's ready!
[Laughing]
Tracy liked to party, and when he maybe
over served himself, he would turn into
someone called 'Chico Divine'.
You don't want him to come out.
-Who's 'Chico Divine'? -[Cheering]
♪
If you're looking at paparazzi shots and
the shirt's off, that's Chico.
It's Chico.
You're always in the paper for taking your shirt off.
-What is that all about? -[Cheering]
I'm a sex symbol, baby!
Tracy's rise was really, really huge,
that it would be obvious that he would be a
part of the party scene.
And I think to navigate that, bringing out a character that
is an alter ego that can push envelopes beyond
the Tracy Morgan, makes sense.
It was almost like having a bodyguard to protect yourself.
Oh, Im'a get you pregnant, word up.
Tracy ignores that drinking is
catastrophic for his health.
I think his attitude was that he is a survivor,
and he is tough, and he's made it this far.
He even treated the diabetes that way.
He was like, "The bad sugar's not gonna take me."
Tracy had some legendarily
notorious drinking stories.
Too much partying, burning the candle on both ends,
passing out in the club,
funding strippers' entire college careers.
So, nothing was gonna slow him down.
[Tracy] Love! It's all love!
Hey Lou, what's the dealio on that weather, son?
It's that... it's cold.
It is "vetty" cold. You can see for Tuesday.
After a rocky start on Saturday Night Live,
Tracy has become a fan favourite.
People adapt to Tracy.
-I'm saying. -Alright, come on, let's go.
We're in the middle of a show.
Sometimes Black comedians, I've been guilty of it,
go into a White room and then trying to adapt to the room.
Get me a soda, bitch!
[Laughing & applauding]
But people adapted to him, 'cause he was
gonna be himself, no matter what.
-Okay. -Alright.
As somebody who grew up with nothing,
once he had the ability to get things,
he was spendin' dollars.
He went out and bought a Jaguar in New York City,
and got into a fender bender
his first day driving it in Manhattan.
Two questions.
Why would anyone buy a Jaguar in Manhattan?
And secondly, the money he spent on that fender bender
was probably my yearly salary.
There wasn't like, a diva effect.
That didn't happen to Tracy at all.
He just let his natural ridiculousness run wild.
I'm checking this out, this is...
This is great. Look at this.
-You got some bling here. -Yeah this is bling.
Yeah, my family bought this for me for Father's Day.
-They used my money. -[Laughing]
He likes to live a life of excess, and likes
nice things, and fast cars, and gold chains.
But he seems to just be enjoying the ride.
But Tracy feels he has more to offer.
♪ I GREW UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF TOWN. ♪
After 7 seasons,
he leaves SNL for his own sitcom,
a mainstream show inspired by
Tracy's life growing up.
-Hey baby! -What's up?
-You want some coffee? -Yes, I'd like some coffee.
Also, some pancakes, scrambled eggs,
sausage, and a little glass of juice.
[Laughing]
I could see that being a relief of,
[Sighing] "Now I can take the mask off and
be true to who I am."
But the show becomes a wholesome dad role,
miles from Tracy's original concept.
-You a funny little man. -Yeah, uh huh.
Now eat your Froot Loops.
This is a Hollywood wheel.
They take a Tracy Morgan who's extremely authentic,
and White writers go, "We have to appease
an audience that's not all Black."
Oh, time out.
You know I don't like her up in my spiz-ace.
[Laughing]
"Oh no, no no! This is gonna be great.
This is gonna be great." We're gonna convince you this
is gonna be great, and then we're gonna flip the script.
By that time, you've been hoodwinked,
bamboozled, led astray.
The Tracy Morgan Show is canceled mid-season.
Because the most genuine thing about Tracy
is where he comes from,
and when you exclude that, as writers,
so that you can appease the network,
you're in for a failure.
And you deserve to fail.
Tracy decides to hit the road with a stand-up tour
aimed at reconnecting with his roots.
I'm telling you, fellas, don't never let no female
up in your ----ing head, man.
It's checkmate, mother----er.
There might've been some sense of him that
felt like a failure.
There might've been some sense of him that said,
"I want to return home."
Hurt and embarrassed by the loss of his show,
Tracy indulges in the circuit's party scene.
♪
Grizz was a bouncer
at this pretty famous strip club,
witnessing Tracy drinking too much and passing out.
And Grizz would make sure he got home safely,
or make sure nobody robbed him and nobody killed him.
So, Grizz had a relationship with Tracy as a bouncer
protecting the celebrity who didn't know how to stop.
I remember after Saturday Night Live he had a low,
because I don't think he hit his true potential.
Then he lands a role where his faults are
celebrated like never before.
My acting style?
It's like jazz, jazz that you laugh at.
[Vocalizing]
30 Rock is what... [Snapping]
...that put him on the map.
I want to know how that conversation went.
Tina Fey comes up to you and says,
"I've got this conceited, obnoxious guy that
I think you're perfect for."
-Flies over the cuckoo's nest. -Yeah!
I said, "That's right up my alley, suited just for me."
The difference between Tracy Jordan and
Tracy Morgan is... nothing.
They're the same person.
Tracy's onscreen character borrows from
his real life experiences.
[Applauding]
There's this belief out there that you are
your character on 30 Rock.
-No, I'm way more out there. -[Laughing]
He was fearless and hilarious.
I can't read, Liz Lemon!
And unpredictable.
This is who I am. You can't ask a bird not to fly.
You can't ask a fish not to swim.
You can't ask a tiger not to turn back
into a Chinese dude at midnight.
I mean just... you didn't know
what was going to come from Tracy.
Tracy really kept on his, let's just call it the
'Chico Divine Party Train.'
As one does when you go into like
paths of excess like that, things begin to unravel.
♪
There is a legend out there about Tracy Morgan's career
beginning and ending in a bottle of liquor.
I would be like, "Yo, Tray...
come on, man."
Tracy's life of excess leads to an arrest
for impaired driving.
You know we just want to get it resolved.
-And get back to work. -And that's it.
♪
Did you know in the morning they have
food, TV, almost everything.
Tracy Morgan has little time to celebrate
his runaway success on 30 Rock before
he's hit with drunk driving charges.
Yeah, we're just resolving some matters in court.
That's all.
Fancy suits. How was court?
Not great, Beth.
Oh, you really were in court?
He is required to wear an ankle bracelet that
monitors his alcohol intake.
Now I have to wear this for 30 days.
Oh my goodness.
The anklet causes unexpected health complications.
With the ankle bracelet and the diabetes,
he had such a bad wound that just wouldn't heal.
Morning, Mr. Jordan. What's that on your foot, sir?
It's a practice wheel for
when I lose my foot to diabetes.
You can't eat candy if you have diabetes!
There's no link between diabetes and diet.
That's a White myth, Ken.
[Tracy] That bracelet was hurting me and my family.
It was painful for me, wearing that thing.
The thing I liked about Tina was that
she didn't just make fun of it.
No, the ankle bracelet had been off for like, a year.
She didn't do it while I was still hurtin'.
I was with him when the doctors were saying,
"We are gonna have to amputate your foot
because of the diabetes."
Tracy finally makes the choice to stop drinking,
but the damage has already been done.
He was so sick.
He was wheelchair-bound.
He'd get up out the wheelchair, shoot the scene,
they say cut, and he almost fell out.
And we rolled him back to the dressing room.
Between scenes he's laying on the couch,
with the IV running from the ceiling to his arm,
just to give him enough fluids
so he can go shoot the next scene.
It got so bad that he was probably going to go blind.
He had to have an eye surgery where they actually
remove the retina, and then have to, like,
vacuum seal the eyeball back on.
It was rough.
While Tracy's health is falling apart,
so is his personal life.
After a long separation, Tracy and his wife
officially split for good, bringing more than
20 years of marriage to an end.
The decadence of fame has broken up his family.
He was really in this downward spiral.
Yo, let me tell you something about
Sarah Palin, man.
She's good masturbation material.
-Oh! -[Laughing]
Complications from diabetes force Tracy to take a
two-month hiatus from 30 Rock
for a kidney transplant.
You take your medicine every day?
Every day at 9:30, I take my Prograf, you know,
my Mycelex and all this stuff to keep us alive, you know?
It was just one thing after another.
Tracy Morgan once again apologizing this morning
for his recent anti-gay rant.
From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to everybody
who are offended with my words.
It was just really sliding into a non-hireable territory.
♪
Tracy Morgan has been quoted as saying
the more famous he became,
the more he needed to act crazy.
Get crazy a little bit!
Is that the best you could ----in' do?
This is a [beep] set-up, man!
Showbiz was hard on him.
He said that showbiz was his Vietnam,
and his life was the greater war that he was fighting.
And I didn't understand until later years when I matured,
and I really reflected on Tracy's life,
of how much he's endured.
He'd even always say, he's like, "Man,
I come from a place people don't understand."
I can't imagine what he saw as a kid.
I remember reading where you said that comedy was
not just a turning point for you, but that it was
your way of asking forgiveness. Was it?
I always believe in that, you know,
the things that I've done that I never wanted to do,
like selling drugs.
Mm-hm.
I never wanted to cross that boundary, but I had to eat.
But nonetheless, I always felt like
if I- [Voice breaking] if I make enough people laugh,
maybe he will forgive me.
Ah.
When we were doing writing sessions,
Tracy really went into all the things that
people didn't know about him.
So, when Tracy enters this brief crack
selling career, he does so with his best friend Alan,
who said he was funny,
and he should pursue comedy.
He was killed and shot because of
being in the crack game.
So, he'd wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to
succeeding to honour Alan's memory.
But Tracy had survivor's guilt that he didn't
get killed, and so many other guys, like Alan,
did get killed.
I think it's almost like an imprint.
Just like when a bullet is shot and you still have the
gun powder around you, it's still there,
so you can have remnants of what happened.
I think he will never forget what happened.
Showbiz and everything that came with it, you know,
the success, the pressure, the money,
the access to anything you want...
that was his struggle.
And it was something he had to just
basically try and survive.
♪
The Golden Globe goes to...
-30 Rock. -[Applauding]
When 30 Rock comes to an end after
seven acclaimed seasons...
We love you, thank you very much!
Tracy Morgan is in a very different place.
Congratulations are in order for Tracy Morgan and his
fiancé Megan Wollover, who celebrated the
birth of their first child together.
When he took ownership of his health,
I'm thinking he took ownership of that
addiction as well.
In the time he took his, his life back,
it was literally taking his life back, of,
"I want to be alive."
Oh my God.
Actor-comedian Tracy Morgan
is in critical condition after a deadly car crash-
But then, in 2014,
Tracy is involved in a terrible accident.
He is left fighting for his life.
The chauffeured limo bus Tracy Morgan was
riding in is barely recognizable.
I did not want him to be gone, man.
And, and it sounded really, really bad.
♪
Thanksgiving different in the suburbs.
The white people be having nice Thanksgivings,
and they end on time and everything.
[Laughing]
In the hood, our Thanksgivings
didn't start until like, one o'clock.
After 30 Rock, Tracy Morgan embarks on
a new life chapter.
My first show with Tracy Morgan,
I believe, was September of 2012.
There was dudes outside our apartment talk about,
"Yo, is bitches in there"?
People come to me and they would say, "Hey,
you have any funny Tracy Morgan stories"?
I said, "No. Tracy doesn't go out."
When people would send alcohol,
he would say, "No, thank you.
I don't drink."
Cold chicken wings?
In 2014, after finishing a night of stand-up,
Tracy and his crew load into their mini bus
to get home to their families.
I'm sure they're driving, they're laughing,
having a great time talking about the show,
because that's what we would do after a show.
Let's get straight to the breaking news this morning,
involving comedian Tracy Morgan in critical condition
right now after a crash on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Morgan was reportedly involved in a six-car
pile up near Cranbury, New Jersey.
Oh my god. Oh my god.
I was sitting in the back of the Sprinter,
and Tracy called me to come talk to him.
So I got up.
We were laughing, we were joking.
And from what I was told,
a truck crashed into us at 65 miles an hour.
And we were flipped over other cars.
♪
My heart sank.
♪
People looking at me like, "Hey, man, you all right"?
I'm like, "I, I..." They just didn't know-
I was just sobbing. I was watching the news.
Morgan and three others are still in critical condition.
The comedian recovering from a broken leg,
femur, nose, and several ribs.
Tracy's injuries were so bad from the crash that
he was put into a medically-induced coma
in the hospital for some time.
I climbed around and heard Tracy screaming for help,
but I couldn't reach him and pull him.
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't know if he was
gonna make it. You know?
I didn't know if Tracy was going to make it.
Comedian James McNair, also known as Jimmy Mack,
died at the scene.
Devastated. We're devastated.
James, I love you.
James McNair, affectionately known as Uncle Jimmy Mack,
rest in peace, Uncle Jimmy Mack.
He was always funny, always personable,
and he was one of Tracy Morgan's best friends.
Any time I talk to him, he go, "Ha-ha!"
I met him the same time I met Tracy at the
Uptown Comedy Club, and we were all friends.
We all knew each other for, for three decades.
I could have just as easily been in the Sprinter
as anybody else in there.
Nothing is more important to Tracy than
honouring where he came from.
That's the kind of guy he is.
You know, he's kept those people around him,
he's taken care of a lot of 'em,
and he hasn't turned his back on anybody.
When you struggle with poverty,
and there are other opportunities that are
given to you, you want to pursue those opportunities,
but you can't bring people with you.
The guilt is,
"I can't go back, but why me?
Am I deserving of this"?
[Tracy] I am the new Black.
Why is there garbage on the streets where I come from,
and where I'm living now, there's no garbage?
So you have to take care of your own.
Period.
Tracy would work real hard to stay connected to the people.
One guy, a guy named Sharky...
Sharky is Tracy's barber,
and Tracy brought him in to 30 Rock.
He had a special connection with the young lady that
dressed him, because they were still real people.
I was invited to his house to watch the Super Bowl.
I kind of showed up expecting a celebrity party,
and it was basically me and his friends from high school,
a few that were convicted felons,
eating Popeyes that was brought down from the Bronx.
We just hung out and watched the game,
which was real as hell.
He brought the Bronx to, to the stage.
He painted a beautiful picture,
'cause he gave us so much colour.
And for me what stuck was
I could see that there was this deep pain,
and comedy was the saviour.
I'm taking all my pain and struggles and all of that
that I've been through in my life,
and I'm turning it funny now, man,
'cause I'm tired of crying.
If you don't laugh, you gonna cry, man.
To make a joke out of something and to make
other people laugh, you are healing other people,
but you're really healing yourself first and foremost,
because you have to be vulnerable and let people in,
let them see that you hurt just like they hurt,
you live just like they live, you are no superhuman.
If I can do it, you can do it too.
After the accident, Tracy faces a whole new
journey of physical and emotional recovery.
-I'm okay. -You look great, man.
I love you, thank you very much.
Thank you.
The accident, obviously, was gonna require
months of rehabilitation, and Tracy's health
isn't that great anyway.
So, if you have diabetes, what needs to happen for the
body to heal yourself doesn't happen as easily for him.
I was always looking, and reading,
and finding out, is he gonna walk again?
Is he gonna live again? Is he gonna breathe
on his own again? All of these things.
He started passing these milestones and getting better.
We laid Jimmy to rest.
Now, I live with that to this day
'cause I asked him to be there.
It was my tour.
I love him and I miss him.
I miss him a lot.
In the face of trauma, comedy has
always been Tracy's path to healing.
The whole question is, "Will he do stand-up again"?
It's so crazy how that's where we go.
I heard that he may have had some brain injuries,
that it was going to affect his ability to be funny,
and to perform. I remember thinking that
it could be a career -ending thing.
Tracy was never anyone other than Tracy.
Are we ever gonna see the Tracy Morgan
that we know again?
♪
Tracy Morgan is with us now. You're a sight for sore eyes.
-Thank you. -How do you feel?
I'm, I'm... I can't believe I'm here.
After months of intense rehab,
Tracy Morgan makes an emotional return to
Saturday Night Live.
-[Applauding] -Thank you so much!
[Slurring] Thank you so much!
-Nah, I'm just playing! -[Laughing]
Y'all thought for a minute that was real!
But I'm back.
It feels so good to be here.
[Cheering]
The first thing I had to do was learn to forgive myself.
I couldn't do comedy anymore if I didn't.
I remember when I first went back on stage after
the accident, I was hosting Saturday Night Live.
And then that night I decided,
"Let's go to the Cellar." And my boy was like, "What"?
I said, "Let's go to the Cellar.
Let's go to the Cellar." And I grabbed the mic...
♪
It felt so good just to be welcomed back.
[Applauding]
People were wondering, "Can he speak?
Does he have 100% mental capacity"?
But the truth is, I never did.
[Laughing]
The younger comics, they need to take notes.
This thing is not easy.
It's a fight within yourself.
-Don't call it a comeback. -No, no, no.
I've been here for years.
Even all the times when you feel like, "Oh,
I didn't do my best." You have to turn that around,
and you have to just get back out there.
And for someone to come from death's door,
to being able to walk again, to be able to
think correctly, and get back to it?
You ain't got no excuse, homeboy.
[Laughing]
A year after the accident,
Tracy receives a hefty settlement.
"Walmart did right by me and my family,"
Morgan says in a statement.
"I am grateful that the case was resolved amicably."
Could've been worse.
I could've got hit by a Bob's Discount Furniture truck.
You know they ain't got no ----ing money.
He came back even stronger.
♪ YOU HEAR ME? AND HERE IT COMES. ♪
I used to be just like y'all.
Check your own potential, man.
Actually, sorry to interrupt.
-Let's go to brunch! -Ah!
What's happened to Brooklyn?
This story is based on my life.
The people I've lost.
I... nobody on that set ever sold crack but me.
Mm-hm.
The people I've lost in the game in the 80s and the 90s.
Mm-hm.
Before God came in my life in the form of comedy.
When Tracy went through that tragedy,
he became even, even more appealing,
because not only did he survive that,
his humility even expanded.
He didn't turn the tragedy into a commodity to
make it about, "Woe is me." Tracy is just Tracy.
Never a victim, always the victor.
That's how we want to be, in our own lives.
I know my purpose in life now is to spread love,
especially in the world right now that we living in.
I'm glad if I'm the one to spread that love, I love you.
I think he came out of that just so grateful to be alive,
that now it's just, he's exponentially
more grateful and happy and present.
He's even more powerful.
We gave TBS a #1 show and they asked me,
"What do you want, Mr. Morgan"?
I said, "I want to fix my neighbourhood up."
♪
These kids gonna have some place nice
to play this summer.
No matter how big you get, if you can't come home
and get love, it ain't real.
I look at it as he enjoyed himself.
Like, what do you want to do?
You wanna live your life, you have your career,
then you pass on, and then you,
right before you pass on, you're like, "Man,
I didn't really get to enjoy myself."
Tracy enjoyed hisself. [Laughing]
Hey, welcome to our home, we're the Morgans.
♪
In 2019 Tracy purchases a $2 million Bugatti.
$2 million car. Just bought it.
He's struck by another driver...
shortly after he leaves the dealership.
That car was three minutes and 72 seconds old.
Okay? I ain't even turned the radio on.
Yeah. [Laughing]
The dealer was still waving goodbye when I got hit.
But that's why I'm out there on the Turnpike
looking for an Amazon truck, man.
[Laughing] Wait, you're trying to
get hit by an Amazon truck?
I got my beach chair and I just wait for Amazon.
[Laughing]
If I survive it, Im'a be in it.
If I survive it.