2017 has been a banner year for Tiffany Haddish. She delivered one of the year’s best comedic performances with her role in the box office hit Girls Trip, made history as the first Black woman to host Saturday Night Live and had an attention-grabbing and heartfelt monologue during the Def Comedy Jam 25th Anniversary special. And to cap off a year full of success, Haddish released her book Last Black Unicorn earlier this month. Reflecting on her recent accomplishments, she discussed her newly released book, Saturday Night Live, making Taylor Swift cook for her and how success has changed her life.
On how life has changed in the last year: “My life has changed drastically. I’m definitely working every day, which is something I’m super grateful for. My body is like, ‘go to sleep!’ But my mind is like ‘nope, we gotta go get this money.’ I’m able to make my mortgage payments on time, so I’m happy about that. I’m able to provide for my grandma and provide for my family in any way financially. It’s been amazing. I go to store and people know me.”
On her SNL appearance: “I was trying to turn SNL into a Black show. I was trying to get Queen Latifah, Jada Pinket, Regina Hall, Tyler Perry and Erykah Badu and Michael B. Jordan – and maybe I could hit that. [laughs]
“I told them weeks in advance that they had to call and book them then, because these aren’t just like regular people or celebrities that aren’t doing anything. Everybody has something to do. Everyday that I wanted on the show said yeah, but SNL didn’t hit them up until the week of. That’s how they operate, which is felonious. I lost seven pounds. I call it the SNL Diet. It’s the stress diet. I was very stressed, because I came with ideas, but that show is a machine. It has been going for over 40 years, so they have their own system and way of doing things.”
On the meaning behind Last Black Unicorn: “So I call it the The Last Black Unicorn because when I was younger kids use to make fun of me about what I thought was a mole, but was actually a wart on my forehead. And they use to call me a ‘dirty unicorn.’ I use to have a mole on my chin, this one under my eye, the one on my nose and I had this wart feeling out of my head. They would say ‘you a dirty unicorn with flies on your head.’ At the end of the day, I just started clowning back and started accepting what they said. Like ‘yeah, I’m a unicorn. I’m the last Black unicorn.”
On Taylor Swift cooking her dinner “I made Taylor Swift make some chicken. It was bomb. It was delicious and seasoned to perfection. I asked her to make some barbecue baked chicken. She’s beautiful. And she’s from the south. That brisket she made – bomb! It was delicious.”
More of Tiffany Haddish’s hilarious sit down with The Breakfast Club can be checked out above.