Friends of Tiffany Haddish are concerned about the actress-comedian's wellbeing after her recent DUI-related arrest.
Although Haddish, 43, claimed at Long Beach's Laugh Factory that the incident would "never happen again," her close circle fears that it isn't true and that she's using alcohol to cope with a deeper issue.
“As soon as I heard it, I said ‘goddamn, I’m glad she’s okay,'” a close friend of Haddish told Page Six. “But it seems weird to me. You would think that someone would have a driver in that situation. This is tough because there’s nothing anybody’s gonna say to take away that this is her second offense."
They continued, “The way people look at drinking and driving. Hopefully there’s a lesson to be learned. If people want to be critical, I say fuck that — you don’t know what a person is going through. You don’t know what’s troubling a person.”
Haddish was introspective about her troubled upbringing in her 2017 memoir, The Last Black Unicorn, where she discussed her absentee, now-deceased father, Tsihaye Reda Haddish, and mother, Leola, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“Tiffany likes to drink and have a good time, but her friends are noticing that she is drinking way more around the holidays,” a source told Page Six in Novemeber. “We think that she may be lonely and hiding behind a fake smile.”
“It’s surprising because she has worked so hard to get to where she is,” the source added. “She has always spoken about her hardships about being broke, homeless and living in her car. But now that she has found the success she has always dreamed of, new demons are coming to the surface in the form of alcohol.”
“We love the fact that she can move on from this and turn this life situation into a part of her comedy routine. But we are concerned,” another friend said.
Months after Haddish was seen acting erratically backstage at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, on Nov. 24, she was arrested in Beverly Hills for a DUI. Los Angeles authorities were contacted at 5:45 a.m, when a passerby noticed Haddish stopped in the middle of Beverly Drive and slumped at the wheel, appearing to be asleep.
On Thanksgiving Day, Haddish laughed off the arrest during a special Laugh Factory stand-up set, where she joked about the arrest when questioned by an audience member. “I prayed to God to send me a man with a job, preferably in a uniform,” Haddish responded, per TMZ.
The DUI-related arrest makes Haddish's second time being apprehended by authorities on similar charges, as she was also stopped in January 2022, according to TMZ. In the early morning, officers were contacted when the Haunted Mansion star had allegedly fallen asleep behind the wheel of her 2021 Ford Explorer on Georgia's Highway 74.
While Haddish “pulled into the yard of a residence" when the traffic stop was initiated, police noted that it appeared the Los Angeles native had been smoking marijuana. She later posted a bond of $1,666 around 6:30 a.m.
