Tiffany Haddish calls global fame she got from DUI arrest 'awesome': 'I'm internationally known'
The "Girls Trip" star said she was "shocked" to see the arrest on several news channels that same day.
Tiffany Haddish says her 2023 DUI arrest came with a silver lining — international fame.
Though the comedian already had Girls Trip and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent under her belt, Haddish credits the Beverly Hills incident with launching her career into a new stratosphere.
"I’m very famous. All around the world, internationally known,” she told hosts Dana Carvey and David Spade during a visit to their Fly on the Wall podcast. “You know it’s funny, because I’d prayed to God to give me a way to show these studios that I am internationally known and I could be in a film that’s for international purposes. ‘Cause I was told I wasn’t internationally known enough… and then I took a nap in Beverly Hills.”
She clarified, “I took a nap in a car in Beverly Hills and the police came.”
Haddish was detained on Nov. 24 after Beverly Hills police received a call saying she appeared to be slumped over the wheel of the vehicle while the engine was still running. Within hours of being booked, the actress learned that her encounter with the police had made international news.
“I was so shocked when I came home,” she continued. “I was on KTLA, NBC, CBS, Fox, PBS, CNN, I was on ESPN, BBC— ‘I was like, ESPN, I’m not even an athlete!’”
But rather than being concerned about the attention, Haddish saw it as the answer to her prayers: “I was like, ‘Yup, this is kinda awesome.’ I prayed for a way to show the studios, I didn’t know it was gonna be like this though.”
Haddish was later charged with two DUI misdemeanors for the incident — one for driving under the influence of alcohol, and another for driving with a 0.08% blood alcohol content. In February, the Haunted Mansion star struck a plea deal that saw the charges dropped, while she pleaded no contest to a vehicle code violation.
The comedian was on her way home after performing at The Laugh Factory’s free Thanksgiving dinner in West Hollywood when she pulled over in her car. Though she admits that she had "a drink or two” at the event, Haddish denied that she was driving under the influence, explaining that she merely fell asleep after putting her Tesla on autopilot.
"The Tesla, the way it's set up, if your hands are off the steering wheel too long it’ll pull over to get you help because it thinks that something’s wrong,” she explained. “I parked perpendicular on the sidewalk as opposed to parallel… And I had been there for quite some time because the car had turned off and the police thought I was dead in the car. They said I was slumped over the steering wheel.”
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Haddish said she awoke, after EMT and police had gathered outside her vehicle, to the sound of talking. “I opened my eyes and looked up and they were like, ‘Oh s---, she’s alive! She’s alive!’”
She joked, “And then I thought that was another prayer being answered, because I had prayed to God to send me a handsome man.”
The California DUI came two years after Haddish’s arrest for another suspected DUI in January 2022 in Peachtree City, Ga. Following the first DUI, Haddish told a nearly identical joke on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, quipping, "I’ve been praying to God to send me a new man. A good man. And, uh, God went ahead and sent me four in uniform.”
You can hear Haddish discuss the arrest and its aftermath in the podcast episode above.
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