Tiffany Haddish has been steadily rising in the ranks of Hollywood royalty since her breakout role in 2017’s Girls Trip—and an accompanying series of hilarious late-night appearances. But industry staple the Hollywood Reporter captured Haddish as we’ve never seen her before for its June 13 issue: looking ethereal among lush greenery in a garden-themed shoot, photographed by Miller Mobley at an Oakland, Calif., location.
The magazine literally crowns Haddish “the new queen of comedy.” In-demand stylist Law Roach topped Haddish’s brushed-out and bobby-pinned highlighted waves with crowns and tiaras while dressing the star in gauzy gowns and floral prints from the likes of Giambattista Valli and Valentino couture. But the best accessory? A pair of bamboo earrings emblazoned with Haddish’s catchphrase, “She Ready.”
In her interview—which took place over drinks in first class during a cross-country flight—Haddish kept it typically real, pulling no punches or playing the polite Hollywood game while doing a little “celebrity association,” starting with confirming her lust for Leonardo DiCaprio:
Yeah, I met him at a party two, three months ago, and I asked him if he’d let me hit that. He’s like, “Tiffany, you’re so funny.” I’m like, “I’m serious.” And then he goes, “I mean, I’d do it, but … ” I told him, “My only stipulation: I wanna do it with you as your character in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. ... Cause I feel like that performance deserves a real reward and that reward is this (gestures at her own body).”
And if you’re still on the fence about whether Roseanne Barr is really a racist, Haddish apparently conducted her own litmus test nearly two decades ago:
I don’t know if you know El Segundo [a coastal California town near LAX] ... One day, we were walking around the neighborhood, and [Haddish’s friend] Anna says, “Oh, Roseanne lives there.” Now, I loved Roseanne, and the next day we walked by, and she was in her yard. I say, “Hiiii, Roseanne.” She looks at me (makes a disgusted face), and ran in the house. I thought, “Maybe she don’t want to be bothered today.” A week later, we walk by again, and I told Anna—she’s Hispanic, but she looks white—she should say hi this time. So she says, “Hi, Roseanne,” and Roseanne goes, “Hey!” I thought, “Maybe she got to know us.” Then I go back, like, a week later, I wave again and say, “Hi, Roseanne! I love your comedy,” and she (makes the same disgusted face) and turns her head. I think, “Fuck that bitch.” That was 2000, maybe 2001, so it’s not new. She been racist, why’d you all give her a TV show?
But Haddish doesn’t just have jokes; she also talks about her lean years as an upstart comedian and her childhood, which became abusive after her mother suffered a traumatic brain injury. In fact, Haddish credits the experience with helping her find her comedic chops, as she’d attempt to keep her mother entertained rather than angry. “She’d laugh in the moment,” she told the magazine, “and then she’d remember why she was mad later and come back and whoop my ass.”
That history of abuse purportedly resurfaced in a past marriage, during which a former Laugh Factory colleague recalls Haddish once going onstage with a black eye:
She was crying so much she was gasping for breath ... I’ll never forget it, she went into the bathroom, threw some water on her face, and then went out onstage, and for 30 minutes she made people laugh. There was so much pain inside her, but she didn’t allow any of it to show.
These days, Haddish is single and almost singularly focused on her career, which is soon to become an entire empire if she has her way:
I want to make a cookbook. I wanna make a gardening book. I want a clothing line. I want a jewelry line. I want a perfume. .... And then I want to buy two streets that intersect, Tiffany and Haddish, and I’m gonna build a big youth center, a mental health center, I might do some transitional housing, too. But I’m gonna own it. And I’m gonna have music and all the other stuff they’re taking out of schools. Right now, my mind’s on one street, but it might be in every city, every metropolis, and it might turn into a big thing. It’s gonna be amazing.
The Glow Up tip: Tiffany Haddish is on the June 13 cover of the Hollywood Reporter, available on newsstands now.