Tiffany: “Why are you leaving the prices on if you got it free?”
Jada: “So you know the value of what you’re carrying around. You got to carry yourself like you’re valuable, and you need to have valuable things. When this movie comes out, you’re going to be an A-list actress, you’ve got to think like an A-list person. This is what I was talking about in that text I sent you.”
Tiffany: “What do you mean? I like my $85 dress.”
Jada: “Tiffany, you want to wear designer clothes, because people are going to be seeing you, you’re gonna be in the eye of the public and they’re gonna be like, what are you wearing? If you say Chico or Ann Taylor, that’s not going to work. You need to be wearing designers. It sets you apart from everybody else and puts you in a certain class level. If you want to be considered top-notch, you need to wear top-notch type things.”
Tiffany: “But Jada, this stuff costs money. I appreciate your gifts, I really do, but I can’t buy this myself. I have to be smart with my money, and save it. I gotta stack my chips, not spend ’em.”
Jada: “You absolutely should be smart with your money! If it makes you feel safe to stack your chips, stack ’em. Most people in Hollywood don’t do that, that’s smart.”
Tiffany: “I want to spend my money on things that I think will make me more money. That’s why I’m investing in my book. And my comedy special. That’s why I buy nice hair, it’s going to make me more money if I look better, like that.”
Jada: “That’s great, Tiffany, you do that. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Tiffany: “OK, but what I still don’t get is what does a $1200 bag have to do with that? If I buy shit like that, I’ll be broke. I need my knockoffs, they keep me from living in my car again.”
Jada: “Tiffany, your only two options are not either (1) spend all of your money to try and fit in, or (2) be cheap and look low-class. There are other options, girl!”
Tiffany: “Like what? I’m not about to steal that stuff!”
I couldn’t think of any other options from what she said, besides stealing.
Jada: “I’ll introduce you to some people, but really, all it boils down to is using your fame to get the stuff. Designers want famous, pretty women wearing their clothes. You put yourself on Instagram wearing a $500 dress, most places will give it to you for free, or very cheap.”
Tiffany: “Free is an option? Because I understand free, and I like that shit a lot. Free does make sense.”
I have thought about this a lot, and the more experience I get in Hollywood, the more I think Jada is right. I definitely have a very rough mentality, a broke person’s mentality. I have a little bit of money now, but I just stack it away like a chipmunk. I don’t know how much to spend, or where, or on what. It’s cool to save, but I need to use my money in smart ways to help myself and my career.
Now that I’ve earned my way to a new level in life, I have to do new things. I can’t be living that poor life anymore, I can’t be thinking that way. Poor mindset can work when you’re poor, but it doesn’t work well when you have a little money (I emphasize a little—I’m far from rich).
I know this, but honestly, part of me still feels like I could end up homeless again at any point in time, and then all I’m going to have is a bag with a dog on it. And I don’t want that. I’d rather have the money.
I want my money to make me money, but what Jada is teaching me is that how you look in Hollywood can often make you money. Opportunities in Hollywood will open up if you are sending the right signals about yourself. Fashion is part of how to send the right messages.
If I want to be the girl that belongs in Hollywood, I not only have to have talent, but I also have to signal to Hollywood that I belong.
By wearing cheap, low-class, knockoff stuff, I’m telling people that they can treat me low-class. That maybe I don’t belong on that higher level.
I have to value myself properly. That’s something I have had a hard time with in the past, but I’m getting better.
Jada: “Tiffany, I’m also going to need you to be wearing makeup when you’re out or onstage. And can you at least glue on some lashes and put on some lips daily?”
Tiffany: “I don’t feel like it. If it’s an audition? Yeah. If it’s an interview for something? Yeah. Otherwise, I feel like I should be able to walk around here naked-faced.”
Jada gave me that look you give a child when they are mad that gravity exists.
Jada: “Tiffany, that should be how it works. And it would be great if it was true. But it’s not how Hollywood works. You need to start wearing makeup. You’re a pretty girl, you need to let yourself look that way.”
Tiffany: “Okay, well when we get closer to the premiere of the movie, I’ll start wearing makeup, I promise. And it’ll be good makeup too, not the stuff I buy from the pharmacy.”
She laughed at that, too.
Daddy
My father just died on May 13, 2017.
I’m looking at him right now, his cremated remains, as I write this. He’s in a priority mail box, sitting on my dresser.
He didn’t want me at the hospital or anything. When he visited me in LA, he went to the hospital. He told the doctors not to tell me anything that’s going on with him. I know that he had congestive heart failure, but he wouldn’t tell me anything else.
Tiffany: “Dad, well, if you don’t let them tell me, what do you want me to do? What if you die?”
Dad: “I want you to cremate my body and take me back to Africa and put me next to my mother.”
He told the hospital not to call me or contact me until he was dead. They called me just before he died, because they felt like that was wrong. I flew up there, paid for the mortuary, everything.
I called one of his cousins to tell him. He started telling me about all this property I got in Africa, and that I’m actually a princess in his old village. That my dad was like a king in the village, but he ran away because of the war. Then he was saying, there’s back taxes that I need to pay and all this stuff. And if I come, I have to come with some type of security, because it’s still a war going on in the village, where my grandmother’s grave is. And I have to claim this land for the family, before the government finds out my father is dead, because they’ll confiscate it from the family, and then we won’t have nothing, and that’s what they living off of.
I didn’t know about any of this. This feels like it’s a movie. Hopefully, not a tragedy.
I just know that I married a man who promised to find my daddy. I got ten years with my dad. I learned a lot, but I also feel like he punked out on me.
Now he wants me to go to Africa. I don’t know. I am trying to find the funny in that. I still can’t find nothing funny about it, but I’m trying.
She Ready Now
The movie Girls Trip came out in July 2017, did thirty million in the opening weekend, and my life totally changed.
This used to be my normal conversation with directors and producers:
Tiffany: “Hey, I would like to work with you one day.”