Comedian and actor Kevin Hart suffered what reports say is a “major back injury” after a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda he recently bought himself for his 40th birthday ran off the road and rolled down an embankment in Calabasas, California early Sunday morning. Two others were in the vehicle at the time. The man who was driving the car also reportedly suffered a serious back injury.
“Hart and the driver, Jared Black, sustained ‘major back injuries’ and were transported to nearby hospitals for treatment,” CNN reported Sunday citing a California Highway Patrol report. “Black was driving Hart’s 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, according to the report, when he lost control of the vehicle. It went off the road and rolled down an embankment.”
Hart was reportedly able to exit the vehicle while the other two were trapped inside.
“Police tell us the driver of the car was found pinned in his seat under the crushed roof and so was the female passenger,” TMZ reported Sunday. “We’re told the fire department had to saw off the roof to free them.”
TMZ’s sources say the driver was airlifted to the UCLA Medical Center. The woman appears to have not suffered any serious injuries, officials saying she did not require hospital treatment.
Other than Hart’s back injury, no further details have yet been released about the star’s condition.
The accident happened just before 1 a.m. Sunday morning on Mulholland Highway. The vehicle was found about 10 feet off the road and appears to have “smashed through wooden fencing along the roadside,” TMZ notes.
TMZ points out that Hart had just posted video on Saturday of himself in his Barracuda, “as someone yelled at him for laying down too much rubber on the street as he spun out his tires.”
The comedian bought the classic car in July as a 40th birthday present to himself. “I added some more muscle to the family for my 40th….welcome home ‘Menace’ #MuscleCarLover,” Hart posted on Instagram on July 8.
Hart has frequented headlines over the last year, particularly for the infamous Oscars debacle in December. After the comedian was announced as the next host of the Academy Awards — what he celebrated as one of his life dreams — past comments and jokes he’d made about homosexuality resurfaced. Amid pressure from the “outrage mob” and after being pressed by the Academy to apologize, again, for the past statements, Hart announced that he was stepping down from the hosting gig.
In an appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” in spring, Hart addressed the last year, which he described as “a little weird” for him, since he’s worked hard to steer clear of politics and “divisive” topics. “I don’t joke in the politics, I don’t joke in anything that has to do with the slander of others or other communities — I don’t do anything divisive. That’s my biggest thing,” he said. “This past year was one that got a little weird. I was like, I really dedicated myself to bringing people together. I thought that was my goal. That’s my priority. I damn sure thought that was what I was doing, on a global scale. Everybody — all races, shapes, sizes, whoever you are, whatever you are — you can come to a Kevin Hart show and have a good time. So when it came out that I was a person that was divisive, that was tough.”
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