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Contents
Invitation
Mascots and Bar Mitzvahs: High School Years
Laugh Factory Comedy Camp
Family and Foster Care
Titus the Boyfriend
The Pimp Gets Pimped
Roscoe the Handicapped Angel
How I Got (Restarted) in Comedy
Dating
The Ex-Husband
The Long Road to Comedy Success
Tiffany’s True Hollywood Stories
She Ready
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Invitation
Hello, my name is Tiffany Haddish. I would like to invite you to read about a few of my experiences in life so far. I know that a lot of these stories will seem unbelievable. Shit, I look back over my life and I’m like, “For real, that happened?”
Either you will cry or laugh, and I try my best to figure out how to do the second one. I know life is no laughing matter, but having experiences can be. They can be the best learning lessons—just fuck ups but still lessons. That’s how I think of my life, all my wins are lessons and all my failures are lessons that will one day become wins. I decided to write this book in the hope that someone will read it and feel like, “If she can do it, I know I can!”
I am inviting you to read it, because I never want you to say I didn’t invite you to nothing. So come on in!
Mascots and Bar Mitzvahs: High School Years
School was hard for me, for lots of reasons. One was I couldn’t read until, like, ninth grade. Also I was a foster kid for most of high school, and when my mom went nuts, I had to live with my grandma. That all sucked.
I got popular in high school, but before that, I wasn’t so popular. Kids would tease me all the time in elementary and middle school. They’d say I got flies on me and I smell like onions.
The flies thing came from the moles on my face. I got one under my eye, I had one on my chin, and so on. That was kind of mean.
The onions thing was because my mom used to make eggs in the morning with onions in them. Every damn morning, I had to eat eggs and onions. That would just make you stink. The whole house would stink.
Yeah, it was mean to say I stunk like onions, but . . . I did stink like onions.
Kids used to make fun of me all the time about shit related to my mom. She didn’t know how to do my hair. From kindergarten on up, I had the craziest hair.
I had long, pretty hair, but she didn’t know how to do the ballies, or put it in a cute little ribbon. She only knew how to do the afro puffs, or just one big ponytail, but she didn’t comb it all the way through, so I’d look like a cone head.
You know—black women, we got complicated hair. If you do it right, it’s beautiful. But if you don’t, it looks like some crow’s nest.
In the black neighborhoods, little girls’ hair is always cute. They’ve got the barrettes and all that. It’s a big thing to have good hair as a black woman.
But not me. I had naps, and it was crazy. I would love when I would see my auntie Mary, because she would do my hair, and it would last for a few days. I’d try to sleep pretty. I’d put panties on my head, so I don’t mess it up, and I’d sleep pretty.
But there was one nickname that stuck for a long time:
Dirty Ass Unicorn.
I had a wart growing on my forehead. I thought it was just an ugly mole. You couldn’t help but notice. It was spiky and big, and I could not hide it. I used to try. I would wear bangs and stuff, nothing worked. It was growing out of my head. It was like a flower, and spiky, and it would curl into itself, like a horn.
The kids would make so much fun of me, they would talk about me so bad. It would make me so mad, it would hurt my feelings so much. I just wanted to hurt them back, but I didn’t know how to hurt them back or what to say, because I actually did have this horn.
So all I could do was hurt myself. I would take scissors and I would try to cut off my horn, and then it would bleed. It would bleed down my face.
In school, in class, I would cut it off, and I would just sit there and wait for people to notice me. I would be bleeding down my face, and when they did notice, they’d freak out:
Kid 1: “Tiffany’s bleeding!”
Kid 2: “Oh my God, oh my God, she cut her horn off, oh my God! Teacher!!”
They’d be trying to like take care of me, getting me paper towels and stuff. It made them care about me. Hurting myself made them stop hurting me and care about me.
Teacher: “Tiffany, why’d you do that?”
Tiffany: “Because they keep talking bad about my horn. I want to cut it off, so they can’t talk about it no more.”
The teachers never had no response to that.
Then I’d be walking around for three or four days with a hole in my forehead, ’cause I done cut it off. Then it would just grow right back. Like, in five days, it would be right back.
Finally, one day I was crying about this to my grandma. She grabbed me and started looking at my head:
Grandma: “Child, that ain’t no damn mole. That a wart.”
Tiffany: “What’s a wart?”
Grandma: “It’s nasty is what it is. You got HPV. What’chu been touching on, child?”
Tiffany: “What’s HPV?”
Grandma: “It’s a nasty wart that nasty people get after they do nasty things.”
That was messed up by my grandma. Now that I’m older, I learned that skin warts is nothing like genital warts. They’re totally different. But in my grandma’s eyes, I was nasty. I was doing something nasty.
The good news is that she got it burnt off. She took me to the doctor to confirm it was a wart and then burnt that shit right off.
That’s how the Dirty Ass Unicorn died and the Last Black Unicorn was born.
• • •
High school was way better for me.
I went to a school called El Camino Real. It was 3 percent black. It was mostly white and Hispanic and Asian—and pretty much all of them were rich.
I got bused from South Central LA. I woke up every morning about 5 a.m. to catch the bus at 6:15. I had to walk to the bus stop in the cold every morning. I mean, this is LA, so it’s not like there was snow. But for me, sixty degrees is freezing.
What was funny about high school was that all the things that got made fun of in elementary school, they were valued in high school. I was a great talker and had a unique style—“poor as fuck chic”—these were good qualities in a rich suburban school, where everyone else was the same. I stood out.
But the truth is, the main reason I ended up being successful in high school was because of everything I did while trying to get with this one dude, Audie.
I was stalking him. I would send him candygrams. Remember candygrams? I sent him A LOT of candygrams. I gave him a Snickers every week, till we was in twelfth grade. That dude probably has a mouth full of cavities because of me. I would try to write him notes, but I was illiterate, so everything was wrong. It was the worst:
“Audie, yo how bout we date er som fing?”
I was in ninth grade, and straight up I could not read or write.
I could only read three-letter words or things you see on TV. It was like first- or second-grade
reading level.
You wanna hear some real crazy shit? I was in AP classes (where you can get college credit in high school), while not being able to read!
I could not spell or read, but I knew how to talk. I would game people. I would game everybody. It’s easy to game school, once you realize that the rules are bullshit and you can get around them.
For example, whenever I had to read something, I would get someone else to read it to me. There was this one dude who was really smart, and he had a deep voice. I would be like, “Oh my God, Curtis, could you read this to me, I love hearing your voice.” I had the greatest memory, so if he read to me I would memorize it instantly, and then if we had to read out loud in class, I would just say what he had said.
The problem would be when I would “read” the wrong paragraph. The teacher would say:
Teacher: “What are you talking about, Tiffany? You read the last paragraph. I want you to read the first one.”
Tiffany: “I got to pee, I’m sorry.”
I’d get up and run out the classroom. I had a lot of those types of emergencies my ninth-grade year.
Multiple choice tests were easy to fake. I would make people laugh, make ’em want to be my friend, and then, they would let me copy off of them. Essay tests were harder to fake, but I found a way. Here’s what I did:
I would just tell the teacher I was sick, or find a way to take the test later. Then I’d ask a friend, “What’d you say on your essay? Tell me everything.” They would tell me, I would memorize their words, and I’d just repeat them. My essay would be full of misspellings and grammar mistakes, but it would pretty much have whatever somebody else’s essay had.
Now, it seems crazy that I could not read or write. My memory was really good, so it didn’t make no sense. I just couldn’t read. You know what it was? I just didn’t believe I could. I thought I was stupid.
Before high school, I was told I was stupid every day. My stepdad used to tell me I was stupid all the time. My mama said it every day. My grandma sometimes. Definitely other kids at school. I believed I was stupid, so I guess I just didn’t think I could do it. I never tried.
I used to hate when people called me stupid. That would make me so angry. I would want to fight you for calling me stupid. But you know what’s so funny? As an adult, when I was working at the airline, one of my coworkers called me stupid. I said:
Tiffany: “You call me stupid one more damn time, we’re gonna have a straight-up fight in here.”
Coworker: “You do realize I’m trying to tell you that you’re funny. I think you’re funny. That’s why I’m saying that. Like, you stupid funny.”
Tiffany: “Oh, shit. My bad. I won’t fight you over no compliment.”
I started thinking, maybe all these years people been trying to tell me I was funny. Here I’m thinking they were trying to say I’m dumb, ’cause I felt dumb.
But back to being illiterate and trying to date Audie:
Audie ended up outing my lack of reading and writing, but not on purpose. Audie was in drama class, so I got into drama class. My thinking was that Audie was the only black dude in drama, and if I joined, I would be the only black girl in drama. I thought to myself, I bet we going to be kissing. We’re going to have to be husband and wife or something. They’re going to have to put us together. This school racist. They’re going to have to put us together.
But no. These motherfuckers had to be all liberal and integrated and shit. Audie got to have a Hispanic wife in the play. But I’m going to have to be a single mom?
Tiffany: “Why do I still got to be a statistic? This is not fair. I want to kiss Audie.”
Teacher: “What?”
And the shitty part was that Audie was cool with it. Man, I sent him so many Snickers, and he never gave me any sugar.
It was the drama teacher who figured out I couldn’t read. It was the end of my ninth-grade year. She asked me to stay after class, and by this time, she knew my hustle. She trapped me.
Miss Gree: “Tiffany, I want you to try this part. It’s a role opposite Audie.”
Tiffany: “Yeah, girl, I’m in!”
Miss Gree: “Great, I thought you might like it. Here, read this page, let’s see how you do.”
Tiffany: “Okay, Miss Gree, lemme take the script home and work on it, and I’ll do it for you tomorrow.”
Miss Gree: “I love your work ethic, Tiffany. But no. I’m going to need you to read this right now.”
Tiffany: “Uh . . . I’m not feeling well though, for real.”
Miss Gree: “You seemed very healthy thirty seconds ago. This must be a rapid virus.”
Tiffany: “Oh yeah, it could be Ebola. I better get to the nurse before I infect you.”
Miss Gree: “Tiffany . . . can you read?”
Tiffany: “I can read!”
Miss Gree: “Then just read this paragraph before you go see the nurse. Read this and you have the part.”
Tiffany: “You so pretty, Miss Gree. Did you change your hair?”
She was like no, no, no, no, no. She caught me.
But she was so cool about it. She didn’t tell anyone. She got me out of nutrition class, and had me come in every day and learn to read with her. She took me from first-grade level to ninth-grade level in like, a month. She just sat with me and showed me, and it was no problem.
Once I could read, man, it was like I had a superpower! I wasn’t stupid! All them words made sense!
She had me get into competitive monologue. I had already been in a drama festival as part of a team, and my team won first place for Macbeth, but I was just a witch. Easy shit, like, “Double double toil and trouble.” Super easy.
Now she had me do the Shakespeare Festival. It was a monologue, so I played all the characters. I was doing pretty well at some of the smaller competitions, but then there was the big one.
And I won first place. I beat out 375 drama kids.
When they called me as the winner, it was just me standing there onstage along with this one white guy. We were the finalists. He had won every year previously, so everyone expected him to win again. When they called my name, I kinda freaked out. I remember just being like, “Whooaaa.” I was just trembling all over, and then I started doing the Running Man right onstage. The lady who was presenting the award got mad:
Presenter: “Act like a lady. Act like a lady!”
Tiffany: “I am! I am!”
I think that’s the very first time I had an orgasm. I’m pretty sure I had one onstage. Then, I didn’t know what it was. I just started trembling and freaking out and getting sweats and tingling. Man, I was so happy.
You know what I was most happy about?
This would mean I was going to be able to buy my first pair of shoes on my own.
You see, I had made a bet. A week before the big competition, my aunt’s boyfriend was down on me:
Boyfriend: “You’re not gonna do it. That drama shit is a white thing. You’re not going to make it.”
Tiffany: “I’ve won before, at smaller meets. I did good.”
Boyfriend: “They ain’t gonna pick you. This Shakespeare. This a white thing.”
Tiffany: “I bet you I’m gonna win!”
Boyfriend: “Child, please. I bet you $100 you ain’t gonna win.”
When I got home, I ran in with my trophy:
Auntie: “You won?”
Tiffany: “I sure did. Got my trophy and everything!”
Boyfriend: “You didn’t win! You robbed some white kid for his trophy!”
Best believe I got my $100 out of him. And I used that $100 to buy a pair of Doc Martens boots.
Everybody had them, and most importantly, Audie said he liked girls that wore Doc Martens boots. He didn’t think I could ever afford a pair. Until then, I had been wearing Payless shoes that looked kind of like the boots, but they were regular shoes. I’d wear black socks all the way up to my knees, so it’d look like I had it going on. But I didn’t. I didn’t have it going on.
• • •
The next day, I missed the school bus and went all the way to the Shoe Warehouse and bought my Doc Martens boots, and then I caught the MTA to school. I showed up at the school about three or four hours late and I was like, bam! Stomping through school in my Doc Martens boots.
And then Audie still didn’t like me. He still didn’t want me.
So I became the school mascot. My tenth-grade year, I became the Conquistador, the Spanish soldier mascot of El Camino Real High School.
At first, I tried to join the cheerleading squad, but the cheerleaders had too many rules. Their rules were nonsense. Like you can’t cuss, you got to be on time, you have to wear mascara every day, you have to have your hair done pretty every day. All these rules. And you can’t just dance when you feel like it. I was like:
Tiffany: “What kind of rules you got for the mascot?”
Teacher: “The mascot doesn’t have any rules.”
Tiffany: “That’s what I want to be, then—the mascot.”
Nobody had tried out to be the mascot, except me. So I got it.
The first time I mascoted, I didn’t have the uniform yet. It was too big for me, so I had my grandma do alterations on it. I had a T-shirt, and I wrote on it in big black letters:
“Will have uniform in 2 weeks. Grandma doin’ it.”
People loved it.
My routine was dope. I would be running up and down the field with my megaphone, telling people what to do, leading cheers.
Tiffany: “El Cam, what?”
Crowd: “Mino!”
Tiffany: “El Cam, whaaaaat?”
Crowd: “MINO!”
Tiffany: “You know!”
Crowd: “WE KNOW!”
I would pass out candy, I would bring people down from the stands and do dance-offs, I would do all kinds of fun stuff like that. I would be watching ESPN to see what the professional mascots do, and then I’d be ripping off their techniques. I was pretty awesome at this.
The only reason I even wanted to be on the cheerleading squad (or, later, a mascot) was so I could be with the football players, because Audie also played football. But also, there was some other fine guys that played football, so I figured this would be a great way to get a boyfriend and get laid.
The Last Black Unicorn Page 1