Coming to terms. Tiffany Haddish opened up about her mother, Leola, behaving ‘very violent’ toward her during her childhood years.
The Girls Trip star, 39, addressed the family matter in a sneak peek from Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman that was released on Wednesday, May 29. She revealed that a severe car accident is what caused her mother to become an entirely different person.
“When I was 8, about to be 9, she had a car accident and her head went through a windshield,” Haddish shared with host David Letterman. “By the grace of God, she lived. But she had to learn how to walk, talk, eat, everything all over again.”
The Secret Life of Pets 2 star also recalled how she no longer wanted to live with her mother after the accident because of her unpredictable behavior. “She had became very violent and very verbally abusive. You never knew who she was going to be. Every day was like a different day,” she said.
“I used to be begging my mom if I could go live with my grandma,” the Tuca & Bertie star continued. “And my mom would yell, ‘She’s not your momma, I’m your momma!’”
The comedic actress grew visibly emotional and even choked up when she shared how she once believed her mother was “demonized.”
“I thought, like, maybe someone else jumped inside her body, like ‘Where’s my mommy?’ She’s gone,” she concluded.
Haddish addressed her complicated relationship with her mother, Leola, at length in her debut memoir, The Last Black Unicorn, in 2017. She revealed in the New York Times Best Seller that her mother both verbally and physically abused her.
“She couldn’t get all her words out, so she’d just punch me. Just full on,” she wrote. “Because of her, I can take a punch like nobody’s business. Teachers would ask, ‘Why’s Tiffany’s lip busted?’ I didn’t say anything. As bad as she was to me, I still couldn’t help but love her.”
In her book, Haddish also said her mother was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and was put into a mental institution. But she told GQ in March 2018 that she had just pulled her mother out of the system.
“I’m mostly taking care of my family right now. I just got my mom out the mental institution,” the Last O.G. actress shared with GQ.
“All my money goes into my grandmother and my mother. I got a two-bedroom apartment and moved my sister in so she could be monitoring [our mom],” she continued. “I got nurses for my mom. My grandma bumped her head and had to have her brain drained, and she’s dealing with Alzheimer’s. I’ve got meal services coming to the house for her and for my mom.”
The My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman episode hits Netflix on Friday, May 31.
