Tommy Davidson Left "In Living Color" For Rehab, Says He Would Be Dead If He Hadn’t

His career catapulted into stardom as one of the key cast members of In Living Color, but all that glitters isn’t gold. His funny characters are now apart of television history, but while he was making America laugh every week, Tommy Davidson was struggling with a serious addiction. The actor has been on a press tour recently in support of his newly released memoir Living in Color, and in a chat with Comedy Hype, Davidson discussed leaving his hit show to go to rehab.

Jon Kopaloff / Stringer / Getty Images

“I don’t make no excuses for nothing,” the comedian said. “It was just I had a problem, man. And it took me out, and if it wasn’t for me having good people around me, I’d be where Elvis [Presly] is, John Belushi is, [Chris] Farley. I’m grateful. I don’t even trip. It got to that point where I had to do something and life circumstances would come along… and you’ll throw caution to the wind to warnings. I seen the warnings all around my neighborhood. I seen addicts all my life. I seen people with alcohol problems all my life. All my life. And people would sit me down and say don’t you do that, and it wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just one of them things where there was a lot of opportunities available to me and I was in an emotional space where I was dependent on those things to help me deal with the present reality.”

He admitted that Keenan Ivory Wayans, the creator of In Living Color, along with others pulled him to the side to urge him to get help. After he left for a time Davidson did return to the show, but the cast had made a few changes while he was gone. He said “there was a lack of quality to the show” at that point and that he missed the friendship he’d formed. Check out his clip in full below.