Tracy Morgan has been popping up at a bunch of talk shows under quarantine from his 30,000-square-foot home in New Jersey, trading jokes with Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien, Seth Meyers, and more over the past couple of weeks. But he saved his best material for the Today show’s Hoda Kotb.
The former SNL and 30 Rock star was there to promote the new season of his TBS show The Last OG. But first, Kotb asked him what life has been like for him and his family during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Oh, well, me and my wife have been quarantining it for like three weeks so she’s pregnant three times. Every week she got pregnant,” Morgan said. “And also we’re role-playing a lot now. She’s playing a young maiden whose grandfather was infected with coronavirus and I’m the scientist who discovered the cure. And she’ll do anything to save her grandfather's life. And I mean anything.”
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All Kotb could say in response was, “Well, you are a creative one.” She tried to ask him about the bowling alley in his house, but Morgan had other things he wanted to talk about, telling her, “That’s not important.”
“This tiger in the Bronx Zoo got me scared so I’m going to get all my pets tested,” he said, referring to the tiger who apparently tested positive for COVID-19. “I’m getting my sharks, I’m getting my moray eel tested. I just bought a 600-pound silverback gorilla and I’m going to take him down to NewYork-Presbyterian to get tested.”
Eventually, Morgan got more serious and even emotional with Kotb, explaining to her how much respect he has for medical workers on the frontlines of the crisis. “I spent a lot of time in the hospital and I know what goes on in there,” he said, alluding to his near-death car accident several years back. “And these people, they work hard to take care of you. And I’m very proud of them, they are my heroes.”
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