There wasn’t anything funny about the 2014 accident in which a Walmart truck crashed into a limo carrying Tracy Morgan and his friends. Comedian James McNair was killed in the incident, and Morgan and three others were severely injured. At first, Morgan wondered if he was ever “going to be funny again,” thanks to the effects of a traumatic brain injury and multiple broken bones. But time (and an undisclosed but hefty amount that Walmart paid Morgan in a settlement) heals most wounds. Here are five times the comic dunked on Walmart in the years after his accident…
Blame Game
Not all of the dunks are jokes. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Walmart blamed Morgan and his friends for improper use of seatbelts instead of the negligence on their own driver, who was speeding and allegedly had been awake for 28 straight hours when the vehicles collided. In an email statement to USA Today, Morgan fired back at the retail giant: “After I heard what Walmart said in court, I felt I had to speak out. I can’t believe Walmart is blaming me for an accident that they caused,” he said. “My friends and I were doing nothing wrong.”
Takin’ It Too Far
In his 2023 Max special Takin’ It Too Far, Morgan bragged about his settlement riches. “Walmart took care of me. Walmart gave me a grip. They gave me so much money I could roll my eyes at white people. I made those motherfuckers change their whole fleet of trucks. The outside mirror now says, ‘N***as may appear closer than it seems.’”
The Maddest People Are Tracy’s Neighbors
Morgan has forgiven the Walmart truck driver, he tells Conan O’Brien, but you know who still hasn’t forgiven Walmart? That’s Morgan’s new white neighbors. If it wasn’t for that settlement, “he wouldn’t be living next door to me! I got daughters!”
Morgan told O’Brien that he was driving his Lamborghini around his new community when a young kid asked him how fast it goes. The comic says he only goes 30 miles per hour so all his new neighbors can get a good look. “They’ve never seen a Black motherfucker in a Lamborghini!”
Brand Loyalty
Even when Morgan was in a wheelchair, he told Howard Stern, he still shopped at Walmart. The reason why? “You still can’t beat their prices! But after my settlement, everything went up a penny.”
Morgan’s Next Accident
In his Takin’ It Too Far special, Morgan expressed his gratitude for the specific truck that hit him back in 2014. “It gets hard for me to date women now because they all know I got money,” he confessed. “Everybody know I got hit by the truck, everybody know that. I thank the Lord it was Walmart, not Walgreens.”
But maybe he could have done even better. While lamenting the effects of inflation to Seth Meyers, Morgan shared some advice he received from his financial adviser: “He said, ‘You should wait at least a year before you get hit by another Walmart truck.’ And I listened to him. I’m going for Amazon now. I’m going big.”