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They’d be trying to like take care of me, getting me paper towels and stuff. It made them care about me. Hurting myself made them stop hurting me and care about me.
I could not spell or read, but I knew how to talk. I would game people. I would game everybody. It’s easy to game school, once you realize that the rules are bullshit and you can get around them.
Audie was the only black dude in drama, and if I joined, I would be the only black girl in drama. I thought to myself, I bet we going to be kissing. We’re going to have to be husband and wife or something. They’re going to have to put us together. This school racist. They’re going to have to put us together. But no. These motherfuckers had to be all liberal and integrated and shit. Audie got to have a Hispanic wife in the play. But I’m going to have to be a single mom?
When they called my name, I kinda freaked out. I remember just being like, “Whooaaa.” I was just trembling all over, and then I started doing the Running Man right onstage. The lady who was presenting the award got mad: Presenter: “Act like a lady. Act like a lady!” Tiffany: “I am! I am!”
The only reason I even wanted to be on the cheerleading squad (or, later, a mascot) was so I could be with the football players, because Audie also played football. But also, there was some other fine guys that played football, so I figured this would be a great way to get a boyfriend and get laid.
I became an “energy producer” at Bar Mitzvahs. Energy producer is what white suburban people call a “hype man.” I was basically the Flava Flav of Bar Mitzvahs.
But Timbo couldn’t talk me into doing them. That man hadn’t wanted to dance at first, and I made him, and then I booty popped him . . . and now he’s dead! I just felt like a booty assassin.
Being in that comedy camp was the first time I felt safe. I didn’t think anything bad was gonna happen. That was maybe my favorite part about Laugh Factory Comedy Camp.
I had lived in a few foster places and knew a few things. If a grown man tells you that you pretty, he’s gonna be trying to touch on you soon, and all kinds of terrible stuff is gonna happen.
That’s why I think my life turned out as good as it has. Because all the time, I’m just trying to have fun.
The news came, and they filmed me. It went real good, and they told me when it would be on, and I was real excited. Then the day it was supposed to come on, that day, Princess Diana goes and gets killed in a car wreck. I got bumped. It’s cool, though. I wasn’t mad. She was a princess, I get it.
Black College Reunion was like when all the salmon go upstream to spawn, and they squirting mating juices everywhere—that was basically Black College Reunion. Except with more DMX playing in the background.
I’d rather go to hell and die without a baby on Earth, suffering, than have a baby here on Earth that suffered. That ain’t right.
Tiffany: “You best to get out of here. The police coming.” That phrase will scare off any black guy (except Obama . . . maybe).
Tiffany: “Hey, would you ever fuck for money?” Big White Dude: “Yeah. Of course.” Just like that. Pimping dudes was easy.
I ended up getting out of pimping, because I didn’t make much money. It’s just not a lucrative business, selling dick. Dick ain’t really all that hard to come by.
You can’t be funny if you’re dumb.
If you think only men can make a woman feel horrible, you don’t know shit about other women.
Whether it was a good experience or a bad experience, I was compensated for it. That’s validation.
“Every man is going to think of you as property. That’s why they want to put they last name on your name. Then you’re their property. So you want to make sure whoever you end up with knows how to maintain their property.
See yourself as a house. You have to view yourself as the house on the highest part of the hill. You can’t let everybody come into your house. They can’t catch no bus to your house. They can’t ride no bike to your house. They got to have a nice car with four-wheel drive to get up to your house.”
Not that I needed it, but it meant a lot to me. Because to me, if a man cares about you, he gives you money. He works hard for his money, so if he gives it to you, he cares.
I am always cool to him, because he apologized and made his shit right. And I will always forgive. I may not forget, but I will forgive anyone, if the apology is sincere, and I feel his was sincere.
Will: “Man, Tiffany, this is beautiful.” Tiffany: “I know, right?” Will: “I’m gonna have to get me one of these.” Tiffany: “What, one of these boats?” Will: “No, a swamp.” Tiffany: “What?!” I was thinking to myself, This nigga ’bout to buy an ecosystem?
I have trust issues with people being in my personal stuff. For example, I shop a lot online, I don’t want nobody telling me, “Jeez, you’re buying a lot of stuff from Amazon and Tophatter, why you got so many Groupons? Like, you’re doing a lot of Groupon stuff, why are you doing all this stuff?”
I bought two cases of wine off of Groupon, because they had unicorns on the bottle. I buy sex toys on Amazon. I buy all kinds of things that people think are stupid, and I AM TIRED OF EXPLAINING MYSELF!
Okay, so yeah, I got problems. But I don’t want to be pestered about them!
So now I watch soap operas for ideas on how to handle backstabbing bitches.
Of course, I had to update my fantasy, too. Now that I’m older, maybe instead of him being my daddy, he could be my baby daddy.
It was real hard for me not to just blurt out: “What’s up with that dick, Arsenio?”
Dammit, I’m thirty-seven years old, still getting popped in the fucking mouth.
Tiffany: “Right when you are about to blow the fuck up, when you about to get hella super famous and have hella unlimited amounts of money, that’s when you get killed. And it’s always in a small plane. Unless there is ten white people on that flight, I cannot get on that flight.” Jada: “Something is wrong with your brain.” Tiffany: “Your husband said that to me, too.”
I just shot my special in a theater that seats four hundred people. They had to turn lots of people away. Those people came to see me. Whether it was to see me succeed or to see me fail, they still came for me.
“Tiffany, everyone has some version of this in their life. Everyone has their own personal pain and their own demons, and no one will talk about it, and that’s why they never get better. They’re all afraid to talk about it.” I guess I’m not afraid to talk about it. It just hurts a lot when I do.
My old agent, my current agents and managers, and Tucker Max.