Forward 50 2018

Tiffany Haddish

By Jenny Singer December 3, 2018

She Ready!

It’s Tiffany Haddish’s world, and we’re just living in it, lucky to laugh along.

While the 38-year-old comedian has been ready for years — popping up in guest appearances on comedy shows like “That’s So Raven,” “New Girl” and “Chelsea Lately” — it’s only this year that her fame has caught up with her talent. Finally with as explosive a reputation as her talent deserves, the breakout star of 2017’s “Girls Trip” has become a one-woman comedy industry in 2018, starring in four feature films, six music videos and her hit TV show, “The Last O.G.”

Haddish grew up under extremely difficult circumstances — her father, an Ethiopian Jew and refugee from Eritrea, left her mother, who developed brain damage and became abusive, leaving Haddish to care for her four younger siblings. The five children went in and out of foster care, where Haddish developed a comedic persona, she said, to survive.

“I believe my purpose is to bring joy to people, to make them laugh, and to share my story to help them,” she wrote in her memoir, “The Last Black Unicorn”. Now Haddish may have to set new goal posts — she’s become a household name and an iconic comic personality, winning an Emmy for her watershed appearance as a “Saturday Night Live” host and going viral in every interview and comedy bit she does.

Her days as a bar mitzvah party motivator (yes, for real) are in the rearview, but her contagious joy only grows.

— Jenny Singer

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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