New Urban Media- Meet America's Newest Comedy Darling, "Girls Trip" Star Tiffany Haddish

As fearless as the author herself,  "The Last Unicorn" is a hysterically funny and
bold and unblinking collection of memoir essays by comedian Tiffany Haddish.

The month of December saw the global arrival of America's newest Funny Girl, Tiffany Haddish -as the breakout star of the  U.S. blockbuster comedy "Girls Trip", a raucous "Frauenfilme" currently playing at Cinemaxx theaters across nineteen cities in Germany.

Middle Aged Girls Gone Wild: (left) the German movie poster for "GIRLS TRIP",
and (right) Haddish secretly mixes up Absinthe cocktails for her unsuspecting
travel buddies in the film.

It's been quite the year for the comedian and author of the new book, "The Last Black Unicorn" and first black woman to host iconic comedy sketch show, "Saturday Night Live", Tiffany Haddish was previously known for her soap opera tv role on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network ("If Loving You Is Wrong"), and NBC's critically acclaimed sitcom "The Carmichael Show". While the stand-up comic has some small films to her credit, "Girls Trip" is her first big movie role, co-starring alongside superstars Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith- and similarly to party movies likeBridesmaids" and "The Hangover",  allows a comedic talent like Haddish a lot of leg room to pull off zany screen gags and comedic improvisation  or big screen audiences.

In stark contrast to her sunny and infectiously endearing personality, life hasn't always been so bright for the 38 year old California native.  She is a product of American foster care, having entered the system at age 12 after an attempted murder attempt by her (then) stepfather against the immediate family.  The stepfather was imprisoned, but Haddish's mother suffered debilitating brain damage from the car accident he orchestrated, triggering schizophrenia, and impairing the mother's ability to properly care for her children. Haddish's birth father was a Jewish refugee who split from her mother when Haddish was only three years old, and she never knew him afterwards- leaving Tiffany to become the primary caregiver of her four younger half-siblings as a small child herself.  

With so much weight on her young shoulders at that time, in interviews Haddish often recounts the early years where she struggled in school, both in the classroom for her difficulties to keep up with schoolwork, and outside as a target for bullies.  It was in those latter scenarios that she used quick wit and comedic timing as a means of defense to disarm her tormentors. After being reunited with her siblings under her grandmother's care at age 15,  Tiffany found acting and comedy to be life-saving outlets for her pain, winning awards for her participation in Shakespearean monologue competitions, and then at age 17, choosing to attend the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp over psychiatric therapy (the latter being the result of an ultimatum issued by her social worker at the time). She often speaks of the healing power of laughter over her life and the lives of others, in a recent NPR interview to discuss her memoir, "The Last Black Unicorn", she tells jokingly host David Greene, 

" I'm grateful for the experience..you know, like, I've built a whole career off of being funny, trying to....keep from getting punched."  She added in earnest: 

"Life happened for me," she says. "But I just kept pushing 'cause I know what I'm supposed to do here on this Earth."  When sharing how she hopes she can be an inspiration to those from the foster care system and everywhere, closes with the hope that young people can hear her story and discover "My life is hard, but it ain't that hard. If she could survive that, I could survive anything.'   Check out one of Tiffany's recent interviews in support of her new book, "Last Black Unicorn" on THE ELLEN SHOW below: