Tiffany Haddish Used Her ‘Girls Trip’ Check to Pay Off Her House Because She Worried About Being Homeless Again
Emmy Award-winning actor Tiffany Haddish has risen to become a beloved figure in Hollywood over the past decade. But Haddish had a long and winding road to stardom: she was homeless before she became a comedian, and later, an actor. But even after her breakout movie, 2018’s Girls Trip, Haddish still feared becoming homeless again.
Tiffany Haddish got her start in comedy
Tiffany Haddish has been open about her difficult childhood in the past. She dealt with an abusive mother at home and sought to make her happy by making her laugh. She was eventually placed in the foster care system.
After she graduated from high school, Haddish’s social worker told her she either had to attend psychiatric therapy or go to the Laugh Factory’s Comedy Camp. Haddish, at 17 years old, chose to do comedy as an outlet for her pain.
Tiffany Haddish was homeless for a period
At the time, Haddish was living in Beverly Hills — but not in a luxurious mansion; she lived out of her car.
She received mentorship advice from notable comedians such as Richard Pryor, Dane Cook, and the Wayans brothers throughout her comedy career. But it was another future comedy star, Kevin Hart, who helped her get back on her feet when he discovered she was living in her car. He gave her money to find a place and told her to write down a list of goals.
Eventually, she started to appear in small TV roles, such as in Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven.
She used her ‘Girls Trip’ check to pay off her house
In 2018, Haddish was one of the stars of the hit comedy movie Girls Trip. It ended being her breakout role, as audiences everywhere now knew who she was.
After she started making more money in entertainment, she started using her money to ensure she would never be homeless again. She spoke about her early days of financial success in a 2022 interview with Cosmopolitan.
“I started trying to figure out how to create generational wealth. The fastest way to do it and the first way you should go about doing it is buy some land,” she said. “So before we even got into Season 2 of The Carmichael Show, I bought a house. Everybody told me I should wait, but I didn’t care. I just knew I was going to have to always make enough money to take care of me and the house, and that’s what I did.”
It ended up being a good move. “Between that show’s next season, the Keanu movie, and making sure I can live comfortably off of $500 a month, I was able to pay off half the house,” she continued. “The Girls Trip check was the final check. People told me to spend it in other ways, but I used it to pay off the house because I was always afraid of being homeless again.”
She’s still worried about financial security
In the years since Girls Trip, Haddish has appeared in several movie and TV roles, and has continued to make money, with an estimated net worth of $6 million in 2022, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Still, despite being in a much better place financially, Haddish still worries about it disappearing one day. “Now I have a surplus of money, but I’m still afraid of being poor again,” she said. “Every movie I made, I would just buy another piece of land or a house.”
