Tiffany Haddish

Tiffany Haddish grew up in South Los Angeles. When she was nine, her mother suffered brain damage in a car crash, and Haddish, the oldest of five children, became the main carer for her siblings. At 13 she entered foster care. At 17 a social worker offered her a choice between therapy and the Laugh Factory comedy camp, and she chose comedy. In her twenties she sometimes lived in her car while she worked the clubs.

After years of small roles, she broke out in the 2017 film Girls Trip. The same year she published The Last Black Unicorn, written with Tucker Max, a set of stories about her childhood, foster care, a violent first marriage and her rise in comedy. It argues that humor was how she survived, and she tells even the worst episodes as jokes.

I Curse You with Joy (2024) is her second essay collection. It covers childhood trauma, life as a Black woman in show business and her reunion with the Eritrean Jewish father who left when she was three. In 2021 her album Black Mitzvah won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album.