Since her breakout role in last summer’s hit comedy Girls Trip, Tiffany Haddish has experienced a meteoric rise. She released a best selling book, became the first Black female comedian to host Saturday Night Live, starred in a TV show, and was honored at ESSENCE’s Black Women In Hollywood event this year. While she’s definitely an “It girl,” Haddish said there was one moment that signaled that she made it.
“This probably gonna seem really small,” Haddish told Jada Pinkett Smith on the latest episode of Red Table Talk. But the comedian knew she was big time “when Beyoncé said my name in the song.”
By now, Haddish’s infamous Beyoncé story is the stuff of legend. After letting it slip that a certain actor bit Bey, the internet sprung into action to figure out who it was. Eventually, the BeyHive settled on Sanaa Lathan (for the record, she said it wasn’t her), and Haddish basically confirmed the Love & Basketball star was the culprit.
But during her chat with her “big sister” Pinkett Smith, Haddish shared a few more details about the night.
“I went to a party, Beyoncé is there, and somebody was acting like they was out of order. They was pulling on me, and then they put they body parts on me, and I didn’t like that,” Haddish recalled. “Then when I found out she bit Beyoncé, then it was like a whole ‘nother level to it.'”
Haddish said that after confirming with Bey that the person in question actually sunk her teeth into her, she let the singer know she was “about to f–k the party up.”
Of course, Beyoncé didn’t want Haddish to get into a fight or cause a scene that night, so when the comedian suggested they take a selfie instead of going to confront the biter, Bey obliged.
“She took a selfie with me and I didn’t fight,” Haddish told Pinkett Smith. “In my mind she could have been real mean about it, but she protected me. I would have for sure probably went to jail, I could have gotten beaten up.”
While many people accused Haddish of talking too much and angering Beyoncé—especially after Bey mentioned signing a non-disclosure agreement “to party with the queen” in the song “Top Off“—the comedian is actually grateful to Bey for de-escalating the situation.
“I wanted her to know that I consider her a hero, because I was definitely going into my hood mentality,” Haddish said.
You can watch more of the candid interview in full on Facebook.