We can only imagine how incredible it would be to give Tiffany Haddish a seat at our table—or what it’d be like to receive a Valentino bag just for sitting at Jada Pinkett Smith’s table—but we got a taste on the most recent Red Table Talk, when Pinkett Smith hosted her Girls Trip bestie for a candid chat about the troubled childhood and triumphant rise that helped make the black girl black unicorn magic that is Tiffany Haddish.
Abuse, illiteracy and major beauty-image issues all factored into the background of our favorite funny girl. Now she hopes her story will inspire others.
“I thought I was gonna be a baby mama,” Haddish tells Pinkett Smith. “I thought I was gonna be a baby mama with, like, five kids, four baby daddies, like, collect a county check.”
In spite of being convinced she’d end up a statistic—though we contend that having five kids by four daddies wouldn’t automatically make you one—Haddish used humor to escape her circumstances, crediting a social worker and others with getting her through high school and recognizing her innate talent.
And how did she know she’d finally “made it”? When Beyoncé name-checked her in “Top Off.” It’s a seemingly small moment in the life of a woman who has made millions laugh, but for Haddish, being recognized by one of her personal heroes was the pinnacle of success.
If you didn’t know, 2018 is a Tiffany Haddish party, and aside from the fact that Drake is missing out—and that we need to get our “penealtologist” skills up—what’s our takeaway? That nothing is insurmountable, obstacles can be opportunities and Tiffany Haddish proves it, every day. As she says, “Everything I’ve been through has prepared me for this journey.”