Tiffany Haddish spares no details in funny, raw memoir
You may know Tiffany Haddish as the goofy girl from the Groupon Super Bowl commercials, or as the free-spirited, breakout star of last summer’s blockbuster “Girls Trip.” You may have even doubled over laughing from one of her stand-up bits at a club or arena.
Whatever way you’ve experienced the actress and comedian, you know she is consistently illuminating, always serving candor, effervescence and just plain fun, with splashes of raunchiness everywhere in between.
Her debut memoir, “The Last Black Unicorn,” does nothing less. Turning the pages is like leaning in during a juicy brunch session with one of your closest girlfriends who is giving spare-no-detail recaps of her jaw-dropping, eye-bugging escapades. Much like many of the roles we’ve seen her in, Haddish is raw and uninhibited as she details the delicate balance of learning her worth while being unwavering in who she is already.
In the opening invitation, Haddish grants us access to “read about a few of (her) experiences in life so far.” She then takes us through the nuances of her upbringing and familial woes, early talents and interests, love life and sexual encounters, and meteoric rise in the comedy industry and Hollywood. It starts as a nonlinear coming-of-age tale that, when simplified, can feel as if the facts are not in Haddish’s favor: She’s poor, illiterate until ninth grade and in the foster care system despite being in her grandmother’s custody; her mother is in a mental health facility; and her father abandoned her when she was 3 years old.
This is where Haddish’s persistence shines; she is determined to not fall victim to her circumstances, even though she didn’t necessarily view her circumstances as challenges. She used her humor to find creative loopholes for her illiteracy, before learning to read in one month; she financially capitalized on an extracurricular activity in high school, making $50 a game for being the team mascot; she persuaded a family court judge to sign a media release form giving her permission to be in a news special while at the Laugh Factory comedy camp.
We see Haddish desire love and to be loved, fully and faithfully, in her young adulthood. One of her most gut-busting, yet heartwrenching, recounts is her detailed revenge on her cheating, wannabe pimp, ex-boyfriend Titus. As crude as the vengeance was, you couldn’t help but feel it was justified, especially after walking through Haddish’s heartbreak.
Continuing on her love quest, Haddish processes through a slew of relationships, one with her coworker with special needs, Roscoe, another with an abusive ex-husband she divorced, then remarried.
She acknowledges these experiences are “unbelievable” and will “either make you cry or laugh.” But, somehow, with her colloquial rhetoric, uncensored retorts and personal encounters situated as scriptlike dialogue, Haddish make you laugh, but also makes you relate and empathize, to her pain and joy, her embarrassment and excitement, her boldness and fear, and everything else in between — as any great comedian does. You can’t help but root for her while laughing out loud at her antics.
On her climb to stardom, Haddish earned her comedy stripes amid rampant sexism, saying, “I can’t tell you how many (promoters) tried to tell me that to get onstage I had to get on my back.” Even her peers would deny her talent, saying, “unless you opening up those legs, you can’t go (on tour with me).” Now the same men who challenged and minimized Haddish are the ones asking her to headline shows for soldout arenas.
In the words of her “comedy guardian angel,” Kevin Hart, Haddish is undeniably “a force” that “demands to be heard and respected” — as a comedian, yes, but also as a woman secure in the truth of her story. Match that with her gutsy vulnerability and acute self-awareness, and “The Last Black Unicorn” silences all notions that black women are not allowed to be multidimensional and complex.