The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish Page 0,52

know. You’re right. I should not have taken him back. It’s easy to sit here now and evaluate this and see I made the wrong decision. I know that.

But it wasn’t easy for me, at the time. A lot of women who suffer physical violence go through this. You get in a bad relationship, and you don’t—or you can’t—find your way out. It’s easy to talk about leaving him. It’s hard to do it. Part of you really thinks it will get better, and he said it would.

Obviously, it didn’t get better.

One night at the Laugh Factory, a bunch of friends from high school came in and saw the show and had a great time. Afterwards, we went next door, and they had drinks. I didn’t have any drinks because I had to drive seventy miles home, I just danced around. I got home about 2:30 a.m. and I hadn’t called him to tell him I was going to be out with them or anything. He was very upset.

Ex-Husband: “Where the fuck was you at?”

Tiffany: “I was with my high school friends, they showed up to the show to surprise me! Man, it would have been so great if you would have been there.”

I was all smiling and happy. He just lifted me up off the ground by my throat.

Ex-Husband: “Don’t be standing here lying to me, smiling in my face, telling me you were dancing with some bitches, you a motherfucking liar.”

Tiffany: “I’m not a liar, you can look on Facebook. The pictures are on Facebook.”

He was choking the shit out of me, my eyes like went red, and I was just looking at him. I didn’t try to hit him back or nothing. I was just like . . . I couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself, This is how I’m going to die. I’m going to die, because I was having fun with my classmates. That’s what I was thinking.

Then he just dropped me.

Ex-Husband: “Anytime you just change your mind about what you’re going to do, when you get sidetracked, you call me and you tell me where the fuck you at, because I need to know. It is my job to protect you, and you have to tell me where you at, and what the fuck you’re doing, because I have to protect you. It’s my job as your husband to protect you.”

Tiffany: “But I was safe. I felt safe. I didn’t need you. I don’t need you to protect me.”

I slept in the guest room for like two weeks after that. I thought I was going to leave, but I didn’t. Once I had taken him back after the first incident, I guess that was it. I accepted that this was part of our relationship.

A few months later, I had to go to Montreal to do the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. I was scheduled to be there for two weeks. I had a great time the first week. The second week, he came to visit me.

He would not leave my side, and all I wanted to do was hang out with all the comedians down in the lobby. We’d be talking and cracking jokes and stuff, up till like three, four in the morning, just hanging out, laughing, and talking. Dom Irrera was there, and he and Dom were talking, and he basically spent an hour telling Dom how everybody’s fake and phony. Saying stuff like he knows they’re all trying to fuck me and all this stuff.

Tiffany: “What if they are trying to fuck me? I’m not going to fuck them. They would have to like gang rape me to get me. Like, I’m not going to do that.”

Ex-Husband: “Yeah, bullshit, bullshit. You’d probably like it.”

Then Tom Green comes over, and he is talking to me and making me laugh so hard. I was just laughing and laughing, and that shit was making my ex-husband so mad. He grabbed me by my collar, he was like, “It’s time to go to the room now,” in front of everybody. Just snatched me by my shirt, and pulled me to the elevator, and threw me in it.

Jo Koy was in the elevator, and I think Adam Ray was, too.

Jo: “You all right, Tiff? Is everything okay? Are you good? Are you good?”

Ex-Husband: “She’s fine. She’s just fine. You all stop fucking talking to her. Getting tired of everybody talking to her motherfucking ass.”

Tiffany: “I’m okay guys. I’m okay. I’m all right.”

I was just trying