Tiffany Haddish Discovers Her Superpower

This movie had made history, had made a one hundred million dollars plus, okay, and I'm trying to figure out where is maka of that money because I have this sing it at all? Yeah, And all my friends are telling me, Tiffany, you will start now, you big time. You're bawling out of control, and I'm looking at my bank account. Like I love Tiffany's irreverence. She is really, really funny. But the reason I wanted to talk to

Tiffany is not because she's funny. It's because of how she uses funny, how she's turned her comedy into a superpower to navigate the profound changes She's confronted in her life. Comedy isn't just something Tiffany does on stage, it's how she survives. I'm maya Shunker. I study how and why we change, and my work as a cognitive scientist has

taken me all over, including the Obama White House. All season long, I'll have intimate conversations with folks who've navigated remarkable change in their lives, and hopefully it'll get us to think differently about change in our own lives. This is a slight change of plants. I want to introduce myself. I googled you. Okay, I'm a cognitive scientist. No, I read that you was the Obama psychic. I came here to get a reading. No, I'm just flying. Your future

is looking right, okay. Um, look, Tiffany. The reason I'm so excited to interview you is because you have one of the most radiant personalities, and I think that it's easy for people to forget just how challenging your childhood was. Um, so you don't mind, I'm just going to jump right in. That's mom My mom worked the graveyard shift at the post office. She gets something from working like six five in the morning or whatever. I was probably like six.

I used to make these mudpies. I used to take all these spices and seasons that I could get to in the cabinet and I would mix everything together and make her like a patty. But I wake her up and I'd be like, thieves are for you, mommy, and she would go, oh, thank you. And I'd be like, because you work so hard, then you're the best working mommy ever. And she would go, oh, thank you very much. Now let working mommy sleep. And then I go, okay,

I let her sleep. And then me and my sister will be playing and I would be trying to clean up the kitchen and she come in and she's seen me trying to clean up, and then she would pick me up. She gave me the best. She used to have the best, the best hugs. Sometimes I dream about those hugs, Like those hugs that's like you just feel like you're in that person's body, like you're in the safest place, like just so warm. You feel like the back of you can't even be seen. All their meat

has just sucked you in. You can take a deep breath and just let all your pain out in their chest. That version of Tiffany's childhood changes in an instant. Your mom got into a terrible car accident when you were eight. Do you mind sharing how that changed your relationship with her? Oh? My goodness. Okay, so that changed the entire dynamic. It flipped it in a way. Okay, So my mom had

the accident. She was in the hospital for like three months, right, And during that three month process were with my grandmother and my aunties. And when my mom came out of the hospital, and mind you, she had to learn how to talk, walk, eat, everything all over again. And I remember the day we went to go get her. The doctor said, you're gonna have to be your mom's biggest helper. You're gonna have to grow up now. You're gonna have to be right there for all the time. And I

remember telling him, no problem. I love her. She's whatever she needs, I'm gonna do it right. So I'm doing these things everything. I mean, she taught me how to tie my shoe. Now I'm teaching her how to tie her shoe. She taught me how to make hot dogs. Now I'm teaching her how to make hot docts. Everything that she taught me, like, I'm teaching her, and then it was so many things that because it was hard for her to communicate, like my mom was like an

excellent communicator. She had this crazy vernacular and now she barely has any words and she couldn't express herself, so she started to become violent. So it became this relationship of the person that I loved the most less planning, the first person I ever loved like she was my God is now my tormentor. And she was so mean. She was set of meaning shit in the world, like crush your spirit type stuff, and it made me start

to resent her and hate her. Right. Not until I got older did I realize like she had she had brain damage. And I mean, the doctor explain that to me, but that does not register as a child when I just think about like I could feel how I felt them, just like constant fear trying to figure out how not to get my neck broke or another tooth knocked out my head, or you know, just constantly trying to figure out how do I make this person happy enough to

not hurt me. Is that when you realize, like, hey, wait a second, I think my humor has power, Like I can use it to get out of dangerous situations or help get me what I want. Yeah, humor is definitely a power, and I definitely realized that as a kid.

It got me hit less or make her forget to lay her thought of what she's gonna do, and then I was able to I was using that in school because I was getting bullied in school because I didn't have the best clothes, my hair wasn't done the best like I was because I was raising I was raising me and my brothers and sisters, working to try to make sure my sisters and brothers eating, that they have clothes and that they're clean, and that you know, like

in getting those food stamps in the mail and helping my mom get the groceries and all this stuff, like and it's so crazy because I couldn't even barely read, right, I'm doing all this grown mom's stuff. Tiffany's mom doesn't improve, and eventually she becomes so unwell Tiffany and her siblings are forced to enter the foster care system. She's thirteen. She moves from foster home to foster home, lugging her stuff around with her in a garbage bag. Throughout all

of this, her one constant is humor. I would try to make like my foster parents and the like group palm leaders and stuff, try to make them so they could keep me around, so they want me around. And you know, for a while, I was feeling like, dang, am I not good enough? Nobody wants me. They don't love me, they don't like me. Like I'm trying to be nice, I'm trying to make them laughs. I don't understand they laughing at all my jokes, but I don't

understand what's wrong. And later on I learned that that's not always up to them, and so a lot of times up to the court system, you know, the age limits and blah blah blah, so many things that have nothing to do with you. Yeah, that thing to do with you, but doesn't mean that it did not affect me mentally absolutely, But my comedy, it also catapulted me and it got me help in school. Like like I said, I couldn't read that good, but I had a really

great memory. So I would get like I would make somebody laugh, a guy laugh that had a cool deep voice, and I'd be like, can you read this to me? And I memorize everything he said, and I'll be able to regurgitate that verbatim in class. By the time Tiffany gets to high school, she's getting into trouble a lot, a lot. It gets to the point where Tiffany's social worker is so tired of showing up to school she gives Tiffany an ultimatum. She was like, Okay, Tiffany, you

got two choices this summer. You can go to the Laugh Factory comedy camp, and you can go to psychiatric therapy because something is wrong with you. You're not normal. And I was like, which one got drugs? And she said, You're definitely gonna be on drugs if you go to therapy. And I'm like, I'll be damned. I don't want that. I don't want those drugs, So I'll go to the comedy camp. I'm trying to imagine what it was like

on that first day of comedy camp. They sent the paper right that says you've been accepted to comedy camp and there'll be a lunch provided please be prepared to talk for three minutes and we will have there will be comedians there to help you grow in public speaking and comedy. Right. So on the way there, I'm thinking, like I'm gonna have lunch today on a Saturday. Normally you don't. We don't eat lu Saturday. As you get breakfast, you kind of play all day, do whatever all day,

and then you get dinner. So I'm excited. I'm gonna get three meals today. All right, Saturday boom, I'm gonna get lunch. Then I'm like, I'm thinking of all the like little monologues that I know in my head I can do, and I'll just like make a fart noise or do a funny pose or something to make it great. Comedy Camp is a summer program hosted by well known comedians like Dave Chappelle, Eddie Murphy, and Charles Fleischer. And this is where Tiffany finally gets to showcase her comedic

powers to the world. I get there and Charles Fleischer is there. I don't really I know the name, but I'm don't recognize him. And he gets on stage and he introduced it. He says, welcome to the Life Factory Comedy Camp. Everybody, my name is Charles Fleischer. You may recognize my voice from movies like Who Frame Roger Rabbit. My philosophy is this, if you don't have a good

sense of humor. Yeah better, I'm dead. I start screaming at the top of my lines, like and everybody's looking at me, like what, And I was like, I love Roger Rabbit. That's why I'm funny because of Roger Rabbit. I got I love Roger Rabbit. And he goes, what do you love about Roger Robbit? And I tell him about the scene in the movie when the detective says to the rabbit, why are these people doing these nice

things for you? And the rabbit says, because I make them laugh, Eddie, If you make people laugh, they'll do anything for you. And I said, that's what I've been doing all these years. You know. That's how I've been able to get people to help me read. That's how I get people to let me cheat on their homework. You know. That's how I get like an extra coffeecake and breakfast. And when I went to that comedy camp, it changed everything because it was the first time I

felt and they told me I'm smart. I'm like me, I'm smart, Like, oh, you're talented, meet me, I'm talented. That was a feeling I never felt before. I felt safe. This camp proves to be a real up ortunity. For Tiffany and she gets to be on TV for the first time in her life. Channel two News in LA wants to do a story on her. Tiffany is thrilled, but she's a minor, so she needs a parent or guardian to sign a media release form, and because she's in the foster care system, the government has to play

this role. So she goes to the LA Family Court to get in front of a judge, and in typical Tiffany fashion, she is on a mission. So the first day, I go to that courtroom and I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there, and I'm sitting there and nobody's really paying me any attention. I'm sitting there, sitting there, and I'm listening to all these other cases, these kids things. Nobody's paying me any freaking attention at all. And in the

day the court day's over. Before I left the courtroom, I saw that there was a sign I said no gun, no food, no drinks, no magazines, no this, all these nos. I was like, well, I'm gonna guess those tomorrow. So I come back the next day. Right to come back the next day, I brought up magazines, walk man, you know food, I had soda everything right, yep. First I break out the magazine and I start chewing the gun that star drinking the dream. The judgment was like, who

are you? I'm like, I'm Tiffany Hottish, and I need you to sign the release forms for me? Like what they get my case? Has me come up there? Asked me, what do you need a release forms signed for a why? Blah blah blah. I tell them why because I want to be a comedian. I'm gonna be like one of the greatest comedians in the world. And he was laughing and smiling. He looked like the quake gir olds man and he's like, you know what, if you are half as funny on stages you are right now, then you

deserve it. And signed a release and I was able to go on the news. So what was it like seeing yourself on TV? Well, girl, let me tell you something. First of all, I did not get to see myself right away because Princess Diana died and got me bumped. Okay, I got bumped, and then it was like not till the fall. I didn't get to see it because I was at like track practice or something. By the time I got home it was like already off. So I called the news station and got the video and then

I saw it. I like for people to see me and laughed. I don't care if you're laughing at me or with me, as long as you're laughing right. And I was like beaming from ear to ear, like wow, I thought I looked pretty. I thought I looked a little weird, but it was really cool. When Tiffany turns eighteen, she's out of the foster care system and on her own. She's got nowhere to go, so she starts living out of her car, a car she's now immortalized in her stand up routine. And I used to be my little

Geo Metro. That ship was packed out, but I was class with mine. I slept in real nice places. I lived in Beverly Hills Beach, kept it classic. Police will come every morning about seven. They would make me move. It was like an alarm clocket. Was cool. I was like, that's why I pay taxes, Thank you police. I'd only ever heard the stand up version of Tiffany's story about being homeless. I wanted to hear the real life one. Yeah, I get emancipated and I get homeless. And I have

to figure out how I'm gonna survive. So I was doing the Bermitsist, but that wasn't really paying. I'm just doing comedy shows, but that's like twenty dollars to ten dollars a show. That's not really enough to survive one. So I got a job working in customer service at an airline, and then I kind of moved around from airline the airline, and I was there for some years, and then I got depressed and I ended up in psychiatric therapy because I had stopped doing stand up altogether.

And my therapist was like, what makes you happy? What makes you feel good? And I'm like, hearing people laugh, seeing people's smiles, that makes me feel good. And she's like, why don't you get back into stand up as like a hobby? You know the psychiatrist story. I almost feel like you're underselling it because you're telling these stories to your psychiatrist and she cannot shop cracking up. Oh my gosh,

she made me sum. She wouldn't laugh at everything exactly, laughing at everything, like you are so funny that a trained mental health professional who's trying to give you counsel cannot keep her shit together. I mean, it's a show not tell situation. It's like, Tiffany, I don't need to tell you to become a comedian at this point. Right, she was right? So you so you have this big turning point. Right, So the psychiatrist says, hey, this is you know, this is what you love. Just give it

a try. What is it about being on stage and performing that really speaks to you while I feel safe? Right? And it's like, if anybody's gonna try to hurt you, they can't because you have witnesses. That's what you have, witnesses. Right, If somebody tries to do something, at least one person in that room will be like, that's not right, stop it, or I got your back, tipp for me. I'll confess

for you. It is really striking, and I think it says everything about your story that you sought physical safety on stage, right. I mean you hear all these performers say being on stage, that's right, comfort zone, and that's where I feel most at home. I used to say things like that, but we always mean it in a metaphorical sense, and I think you know you meet it in a physical sense. Yeah, you know you're not alone.

The immediate, like gratification that I see you, I'm here with you, We're present, right, Like, that's why I love doing live shows. That laughter, it comes right out of people's mouths directly to your ears, may bounce off the walls and amplify you feel it through your whole soul, Like it is the most wonderful drug. For me. It's how I get high. It soothed me, and I don't know why. That's my soothing thing, even like if I get really depressed, that's my medicine. You're not that question.

I said, if you can have any superpower, what would it be. I have it. I have a superpower, and it's to control people's happiness. Right. If I could control people's happiness, like if I step in a room and everybody lights up, everybody gets joyous, that's a really good thing. And then you could I feel like you could dominate the whole world with that, Like you could rule the world. And so am I a superhero? Yes? That's why. After the break, Tiffany talks about processing all the change she's

been through. We'll be right back with a slight change of plans. I'm maya Shunker and we're back with a slight change of plants, and as a heads up, we're going to be talking about sexual assault at a moment. Tiffany's gone through so many changes in her life, using comedy as a tool over and over again to survive. But are there times where comedy's fallen short for her

when life is simply too dark to laugh about. For example, when Tiffany was twenty, she said her stepfather told her he had cut the break lines on her mom's car before the accident in order to try and kill her family and collect life insurance. You learned as an adult that your mom's car accident may not have actually been an accident after all. Can you tell me more about that? I just I g it makes that makes me so mad when I think, like, I get really upset about it.

But at the same time I can find a funny any Like this guy was a sniper. He was in the you know, he was in a military. His job was to kill people. That's such a job and he wasn't obviously wasn't that good at it. Because we're still all alive, Like, you know what, I can't find the funny what I have still yet to be able to find to be able to make funny. And I have tried many times, and I just I'm not capable of it because I feel like there's it's kind of impossible,

but maybe it's but anything it's possible. But I can't find being raped. Yeah, I tried. I try to tell like I tried to tell myself when it happened to me, Like I tried to tell myself what it means. That means you're sexy, you're beautiful, you're irresistible. Girl, look at shit Like That's not funny though, but that is how I was able to process it. There's nothing I can't find nothing about like I was robbed and there's no redemption in it. There's no recovery of what was right,

Like you can never get that back. I would like to figure out a way to make it funny so people can heal from it. And I'm so grateful to people that are willing to share their stories, because when you share your experience in your story, you have no idea who you are healing, who you are helping, who you are uplifting. Another thing that struck me about your life is that you've lived two starkly different lives in

one lifetime. Right. So as a child, you're neglected, you're undervalued, and now you live in a world where even strangers will run up to you and say, oh my god, Tiffany, I love you so much. They want to hug you. And like, what is it like to have lived both of these lives within one lifetime? Yeah, but both lives are the same in a fucked up way, like right, Like so like here I am an adult and and people are telling me they love me, which is what I wanted as a kid. I wanted that love as

a child. Did I want the whole world's love? No? Right, I wanted my father's love. I want my grandmother's love. I want my mom's love. Is your mom better today? So we um? Well, I got my money together, I got her out of the mental institution. I got her the best doctors, best therapist, psychiatric therapists, and like when she comes to my house, the it's like the communication

is so much better. That first year that she was out of the institution, it was a little shaky there and there was a little bit of or I think I'm gonna find my mom again going on, and what you have to realize what I realized now, it is an adult is when people are hurting. If they're hurt, you can only give them. It doesn't matter if you give them your whole soul. They have to heal on their own and maybe just a little bit. The little laugh that you give them is a little it's enough.

But they're going to continue to hurt others until they stop hurting, and you can't always take that hurt away. That's something they have to do. But it's been like three years now, so much better. So it's just a huge difference. And it's there's glimpses like I could see glimpses of my mom pre accident. Wow, Mom, pre accident. Do you feel like, um, getting those glimpses today changes the way that you think back on your childhood, Like does it make those memories pre nine years old feel

more salient to you? Well? Yeah, they're less like a dream or like a fantasy and more like, oh, that really did happen. And it's funny because I'll bring up certain things and some stuff she remembers, because some stuff I think is a dream and she's like, no, that that, I think that happened too. I remember that. Yeah, you have you gotten that hug? Even one time in the last few years. I mean, we hug, we hug that hug.

I don't think I'll ever get that hug from her again, that that hug of gratitude, that hug of like, I'm proud of you trying, that hug of your my baby, that hug of like it she used to be saying it. I'm so glad you try. Like these are the things that play in my mind. You know, Um, that's not a dream. You've willed so much remarkable stuff to happen in your life, but you've been thrown so much shit, right, Um, what would be your advice for people who are listening

who are just feeling totally overwhelmed by change? Okay, so embrace it. Embrace the change. It is uncomfortable, but even if you got to do it kicking and screaming, kick and scream and embrace it and find the good in it. Like you said, like, I've been throwing so much shit. Girl. If I hadn't gone through all the stuff that I've been through, I would not be funny at all. I

would just be a pretty face with a talent. Like if you think about it, like everything that I am capable of that how am I able to access it comes from all of the tragedy. When I'm able to talk to foster youth and connect with them and inspire them to achieve their goals, and they start sending me messages about there's education that they're getting or their business that they're starting, or whatever that's I'm not able to communicate with them the way that I am because you know,

life was easy, or because I don't understand hurt. Our souls are able to connect. I'm tickling their spirit. I'm inspiring them because their soul can hear my soul. The heart speaks to the heart like we could be speaking two completely different languages, and just by the tone of the voice, the tone of it, you'll feel it. Like you can't see me right now. I got my camera off, but I know you're feeling me right now. I am. I know you are, yeah, because I can feel you.

And when everybody hears us talk, they're gonna feel it too. It's just wonderful to feel connected to people that you've never even met before. Thank you for saying that. That's just you just put the cheese on my face any day, and I'm glad you got pretty teeth and that's my favorite part, but your smile. Hey, thanks for listening. See you next week for my conversation with Hillary Rodham Clinton. We talk about how the public's been asking her to

change for decades and how she's handled that pressure. It is a constant balancing act. It's everything from how you dress and you know what your hairstyle is, to how loudly you speak or how loudly you laugh, or you know who you are seen with or I mean, it's just a constant judgment. A Slight Change of Plans is

created an executive produced by me Maya Shankar Speak. Thanks to everyone it pushed in industries, including our producer Mola Board, associate producers David ja and Julia Goodman, executive producers Mia Lavelle and Justine Lange, senior editor Jen Guera, and sound

design and mixed engineers Ben Holliday and Jason Gambrel. Thanks also to Louise Gara who wrote our theme song, and Ginger Smith who helped arrange the vocals, incidental music from Epidemic Sound, and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram. At doctor Maya Schenker. You know your life has been filled with startling amounts of change. Do you feel sometimes like, man, if I could get through that,

I mean I can get through anything. Motherfucking yeah.