Sobriety Taught Tiffany Haddish That She Was ‘Way Too Nice’ While Drinking
Sobriety makes you meaner? That’s Tiffany Haddish’s counterintuitive conclusion about life without intoxicants. “I've learned that I've been too damn nice,” Haddish told PEOPLE. “I've been way too nice over the years.”
Haddish says people mistakenly believe that drinking loosens their conversational filters. At least in her case, the opposite is true. “When I drank, there was a filter, okay?” she said. “Because I would think really mean things, and want to say really mean things, but I just told myself not to say them. Now I say the shit.”
Call it “mean” or call it “honest,” but that’s one way that sobriety has changed Haddish so far. In the past, the comic had enough presence of mind while drinking to keep her less-than-positive thoughts to herself. “‘Oh, don't say nothing because you got alcohol in you and you might say something mean," was the message Haddish received from some internal censor but no more. “Now I'm like, ‘Oh, I'm sober and this is what I really feel, so I'm going to say it.’ Because it needs to be said.”
Haddish continues to toe the sobriety line, telling the Hollywood Reporter last month that “I haven’t drank any alcohol, smoked any weed or anything in, like, 72 days.” She added that staying away from intoxicants is “not hard. It’s not that hard for me, ’cause it wasn’t really, like, my main thing anyways.”
Despite that ease, Haddish did appear to have a problem. In November of last year, the comic was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence after she was found sleeping at the wheel of her car. That was her second incident in two years — in 2022, Haddish was arrested on suspicion of a DUI in Georgia.
The comic turned the incidents into punchlines. After her arrest by the boys in blue late last year, she joked at the Laugh Factory that “I prayed to God to send me a man with a job, preferably in a uniform. God answered my prayers because God believes in me.” Last December, according to TMZ, she was telling jokes about how Beverly Hills jails are some of the nicest around, enjoying multiple plates during her Thanksgiving stay. She also raved about the generous variety of feminine products on hand, proving that you write what you know.
Haddish also told PEOPLE that show-biz industry events need to cut back on the booze. “I really wish people would pay attention to this,” she says. “It's in every event, especially Hollywood events they're trying to pour alcohol down your throat. They're trying to pour this down. And it's for what? Why? If we all just be ourselves... And maybe yourself is a little reserved. Myself is very not reserved.”
You tell ‘em, Tiffany. And try not to be so damn nice about it.
