Tiffany Haddish Shares Her Experience at George Floyd’s Memorial Service and More

On Tuesday, June 9th, Tiffany Haddish joined Seth Meyers on Late Night With Seth Meyers.

We are used to Tiffany being her comedic self, but during her virtual appearance, she shared a deeper side with us. Haddish first addressed why she decided to attend George Floyd’s memorial service after receiving backlash on Twitter.

“I decided to go because I was invited,” said Haddish. “The thing that made me want to be there is I have watched my friends be slaughtered by the police.”

“I have watched people be murdered in front of me,” she continued.  I wanted to be there in support of the family because I understand how they feel. Being there was like being there for all of my friends whose funerals I already went to.”

Tiffany expressed how “powerful” the memorial service was. As expected, she mentioned that the eulogy’s given left her in tears.

“I cried so much,” she said, “it was tears not just for Floyd, but for all of those people that passed away… all the tears that I ever wanted to cry were coming out… the amount of pain that I felt was tremendous.”

In honor of George Floyd, the large crowd participated in 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, this was how long the police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck. Haddish noted that during the silence, she could not help but put try to put herself in that terrible situation.

After opening up about her touching experience, she focused on the positives that have come about since the unfortunate death of Floyd. She commented on the protests sparking the nation and pointed out how “happy” she is to see a push for dismantling oppression.

“I am so happy, finally, that people are seeing both sides of the coin. And that they’re out there marching and protesting and that’s great, but there needs to be more effective change made,” she said. “I’m grateful that people see what we are going through over here and they have an understanding and they’re like, this has to stop.”

As Seth and Tiffany were on the topic of change, they touched upon Tiffany’s thoughts on Hollywood’s portrayal of police officers. Tiffany shared that when she was younger it was a dream of hers to be a cop. She then gave her opinion on police officers today.

“TV portrays them as upright citizens,” she said. “They’re here to protect and keep the peace and then as I get older, as I’m outside more — especially when I went into foster care — it’s not that. I see them antagonizing, creating drama amongst people.”