Tiffany Haddish, who calls herself “an administrator of joy,” can usually find the LOLs in any sad situation. Her stand-up routine includes stories from her time in foster care, living in her car and being perpetually broke before she made it into Hollywood. But as she recounted to Seth Meyers her experience at George Floyd’s memorial on June 4, she made it clear that police brutality against Black citizens hits close to home and it hits hard.“During this time, it has been so difficult for me to express any kind of joy or bring any kind of happiness because I’m literally sitting back and watching the world fall apart,” she said via video-chat from her home in isolation. "It feels like things need to fall apart. Things need to fall apart and be put back together again in a way that's fair."
Admitting her outing at the service was the first time she’s left her house in months because of the pandemic, she said the main reason she wanted to be in Minneapolis was, as she put it, “I have watched my friends be slaughtered by the police. I have watched people be murdered in front of me as a 13-year-old, 14-year-old girl, you know? And there was nothing I could do except, ‘No! Don’t do that!’ Yelling out? What did that do?“Being there was like being there for all my friends whose funerals I already went to... all my friends who passed away, all the people that I went to school with who passed away, have been locked up for no reason just because they couldn’t afford a good lawyer or accused of things they didn’t do; being there was so powerful," she said.Other celebs and notable personalities were also there include Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, T.I., Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and Marsai Martin. Noting this was the first televised memorial she knows of for someone who was killed by a police officer, Tiffany did manage to find a little levity and humour in the moment when her good friend and fellow comedian Kevin Hart, who was also there, wouldn’t put his mask on with her.[video_embed id='1970834']RELATED: Private Minneapolis memorial held for George Floyd[/video_embed]During the eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence (symbolizing the length of time police officer Derek Chauvin's knee was on George Floyd's neck), Tiffany admitted she broke down, visualizing the experience for herself and all her loved ones who have been in all-too-similar situations: “How helpless were my friends when they were being attacked, you know? The tears, I was trying to swallow them, and they were coming out through my nose. And my mask was full of snot! [. . .] the next day my skin was so soft, so I found out about snot facials.”The
Tuca & Bertie star also revealed that as a young girl, she wanted to be
a police officer, but the foster care system showed her how cops can antagonize the downtrodden and make matters worse—something the glorified depictions of cops in Hollywood productions don't capture. “I feel like
Training Day was right on the money. See, I’ve dated many police officers, thinking I would be protected and safe that way. Turns out no," Tiffany explained. "Hollywood is Hollywood, they’re telling stories, and there’s not always truth in those stories […] TV portrays them as upright citizens, they’re here to protect and keep the peace, and as I get older, as I go outside more, especially when I went into foster care, it’s not that.”[video_embed id='1974202']BEFORE YOU GO: The Instagram takeover giving Black voices a massive, much-needed platform [/video_embed]
