Tracy Morgan recently spoke on his 8-year-old daughter, Maven, who has made quite a few appearances on the new season of his TV comedy “The Last O.G.”
“She’s very close to me. We’re very close. She’s my baby,” he shared with Hoda Kotb.
Maven was only a newborn when Morgan almost died in a 2014 truck crash that placed him in a two-week coma and took the life of his friend, fellow comic James McNair. Morgan said it was his baby girl that gave him a reason to fight for his life.
“People don’t just come out of comas,” Morgan told Hoda. “I had to fight. I knew I had to be here for her. I wanted to see my daughter. I’ve always wanted a daughter and have a female version of me. And I’m looking at it every day as she grows under my gaze. And I love her.”
In some of the more recent episodes of “The Last O.G.,” Morgan’s character, Tray, is just waking up from a coma after he was shot.
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“It was surreal,” he shared. “It’s like looking at yourself down in the bed. And you say, ‘Lord have mercy, that was me.’ I was this close to it. I was knocking on the door.”
In this show, he also battles a traumatic brain injury, which Morgan said he related to. The accident gave Morgan a new perspective when it comes to his family.
“I just want to leave a legacy,” he said. “When I’m long gone, I want them to go to my star in Hollywood and say, ‘That’s my grandpa.’ My great-great-great-grandkids. ‘That’s my grandfather.’ Make them build on top of that.
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Morgan was in a wheelchair for a total of five months following the accident and previously admitted that he contemplated suicide during his painful recovery. He went on to say how he broke down when he returned to the hospital to see the staff who helped him recover.
“It was surreal. They remember everything,” Morgan explained. “I had traumatic brain damage so I don’t remember anything and they would tell me everything that happened.”
He continued, “I got to the bed that I recovered in and I just dropped to my knees and started crying because everything came before my face: Jimmy Mack [McNair], the truck, my friends that were in the car with me… all of that stuff came right before me.”
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