Kevin Hart claims part of him ‘died’ in horror crash last year

An emotional Kevin Hart has spoken out about the major life transformation he’s made after nearly perishing in a car accident last year.

Kevin Hart is a new man after his near-fatal September 2019 car crash.

“I’m not trying to get back to where I was before – I want to be better than before. It’s a resurrection,” the comedian said in the March issue of Men’s Health.

“That’s the best way for me to put it. I feel like the other version of myself died in that moment and this new version was born to understand and to do better.”

Hart almost died in September. Picture: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Fanatics

Hart, 40, suffered “major back injuries” while a passenger in a car crash in September, necessitating back surgery. In Men’s Health, he poses shirtless and shows a large scar down the centre of his back.

“I can’t tell you nothing about it. Isn’t that scary? The first thing I remember is being in the ambulance with my wife,” he said in the magazine of the accident.

The actor also said his “road to fitness matches my mindful progression.”

“It matches my career and my approach to everything. I’m glad this is coming now. I’m getting older. I’m 40,” he said in the issue. “You know, this is when I’m supposed to start realizing this s**t.”

Post-accident recovery was a difficult path for Hart. “I could not f**king move. I could not wipe my ass,” Hart said in November of his recovery.

“I literally I couldn’t do none of that.”

He added in the magazine, “So there I was, hiding in my closet, trying to put my socks on. One morning I got to walk out and declare, ‘I put my socks on!’ Goddamn, that was a big day!”

He elaborated on his experience in the hospital for Men’s Health, saying: “It all boiled down to four walls. And in the space of those four walls was my wife and my brother, my kids and my friends, all on rotation. And I got a chance to think about what matters, and it’s not fame. It’s not money. It’s not jewellery, cars, or watches. What matters are relationships.”

Hart tied the knot with Eniko Parrish in August 2016, but it wasn’t long before the two were involved in a cheating scandal. He apologised to Parrish, 35, after a woman threatened to extort him over a suggestive video in 2017 and admitted to being unfaithful in December 2017.

Parrish and Hart have had to work through a cheating scandal. Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

“There were times where he was here but not really here,” Parrish told the magazine. “Not to say he wasn’t a family man before, but he’s expressed that the accident made him make up for some of the time missed because of work.”

Hart added, “I’m a firm believer in laying in the bed that you made. If there’s something that you did, then you did it. You know, there’s no wiggle room around it. You can address it, and then you can move on.”

This article originally appeared in the NY Post and was reproduced with permission.