After fans criticized Saturday Night Live producers in Fall for not being ethnically diverse, SNL boss Lorne Michaels quickly held a country-wide talent search, in search for comedians last December.

Now with only three years out of college (the University of Virginia to be exact), Comedian Sasheer Zamata has been announced as the first black female cast member to join the show since Maya Rudolph's departure in November 2007.



But this new cast member, born Sasheer Moore, recently revealed to RadarOnline that she used to battle with severe vertigo due to a car crash incident that nearly ended her life and has vowed to spend the rest of her life trying to make people laugh.

“I was walking through a line of traffic to get back to my dorm when a car from the end of the line sped around the other cars and through the turning lanes and struck me. I was in the crosswalk and he was driving too fast.”

“I bounced off the hood, spun in the air, hit the back of my head on an adjacent car, and landed on the asphalt,” she writes. “When I landed, I could see my bloody arm in front of my face, and beyond that, I could see the driver running to me with a terrified look on his face.”

While in the ER, Zamata says she was stunned by the outpouring of support from people in every area of her life.

“This show of love made me realize how I underestimated the value of other people,” she writes. “…The goodness in others surpassed the drama that was depressing me. I found happiness from this event, and I plan to spread it to others.”

Not only did the accident inspire her to devote her life to making others smile, the future comedian also used it to fund her attempt to make it big in NYC. 

Zamata however “got settlement money from the [driver's] insurance,” she told Timeout.com in July 2009.

“I won’t disclose the amount, but that’s how I’ve been living in New York for the past six months,” she said at the time. “It was very serendipitous, the whole thing.”

Sasheer will make her big debut on January 18th with Drake, who will serve as host and musical guest.

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