It’s perhaps known that stand-up comic, actress, and can’t-miss late-night guest Tiffany Haddish was once employed as an “energy producer,” which should just be her title from now on. Hired to bring the joy and get awkward white people to dance at bar and bat mitzvahs and weddings, Haddish explained to Late Night’s Seth Meyers that her former professional goal was to see that a given party was “not where it needed to be, energy-wise,” and then rectify that situation. Which, again, nobody better suited for the task, especially since Haddish has apparently taken to carrying on her work pro bono now that she’s a big star, including at a recent Golden Globes afterparty.
Haddish, as ever introducing one of her too-good-to-be-true (but 100 percent true) Tiffany Haddish anecdotes with, “Well, okay, what happened was . . .,” told Meyers that, while several DJs at other parties that night had turned up their noses at Haddish’s request for the mic, the perhaps foolish fellow at the Netflix party relented. Noting that she’d not only been enjoying the Golden Globes’ infamous open bar all night but had also smoked up with Snoop Dogg, of all people, Haddish claimed that her impromptu rap performance went well enough that someone in the crowd shouted out, “She’s got bars,” the ultimate compliment a drunk, stoned amateur rapper could hope for under the circumstances.
But stuff like that is just Tiffany Haddish’s life now that she’s taken to producing energy to the whole world. Meeting idol Carol Burnett on the Globes red carpet and finding out that meeting your heroes isn’t always a disappointment? Check. Taking her Like A Boss costar Billy Porter to her favorite male strip club in Atlanta—where Tiffany is so well-known that the DJ there has her theme music cued up as soon as she walks in the door? You’d better believe it. (The place is called Swinging Richards, because of course it is.) Then there was the time on the same movie shoot where she first met other costar Rose Byrne at the hotel bar and got best-friend hammered to the extent that Byrne successfully talked Haddish out of being a baby surrogate for two gay men she’d just met. “She protected my womb,” said Haddish, telling Meyers that the two are now BFFs.
And don’t forget about the fact that Haddish’s new stand-up special Black Mitzvah isn’t just a clever name, as a recent DNA test confirmed her estranged father’s claim that she has Jewish heritage, leading to a belated bat mitzvah of her own last year. (Billy Crystal did Tiffany’s aliyah, because that’s just how Tiffany rolls these days.) Then, reaching all the way back to Meyers’ time on Saturday Night Live, the pair reminisced about the day that Haddish (unsuccessfully) auditioned to be a cast member on the show. Showing a disposable camera picture of the very young-looking Haddish and Meyers beaming alongside an unnamed other man, Haddish explained that, excited on the day, she’d cornered Meyers (the first cast member she saw in the halls) and asked him to take a picture with her and the only other black man around. Which turned out to be the janitor, because, well, SNL. A decade later, when, among her many other accomplishments, Haddish has won an Emmy for hosting Saturday Night Live, there don’t seem to be any hard feelings. Well, not that many.