Tiffany Haddish
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
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO