Tiffany Haddish had no idea Kevin Hart would go from her “comedy guardian angel” to her movie costar when she was a struggling stand-up comic.
The Girls Trip actress, 38, who stars alongside Hart in the upcoming film Night School, shared that the comedian lent her money back when she was homeless and living out of her car in a new interview with Vanity Fair.
At the time, the duo were performing together in a sketch comedy show called Comedy Playground. When Hart noticed that her car was filled with her personal belongings, he decided to confront her about her living situation.
“He had like this long discussion with me, you know?” Haddish said. “Basically like, ‘You’re a beautiful woman. You could stay with any man. Why don’t you just stay with a man, like?’ And I was also like, ‘I’m not sleeping with nobody for a roof over my head. I’m just not that type of person.’ And Kevin was like, ‘Oh, that’s real commendable, look at your homeless ass.’ ”
The actor, now 38, lent her $300 to get a motel room and suggested she write down her goals and start working towards achieving them.
“So, I got a room that you could get by the hour up on Martin Luther King and Western at this place called the Snooty Fox, which is really like the ho stroll, but I just wanted to take a shower, take a little nap, write out my list,” she recalled. “I wrote: Get myself an apartment. Do these things, all these people I wanna work with, everything.”
The day after writing her list, she was offered an apartment.
“I go look at it, and it’s like the most raggediest apartment you could ever imagine, it was just nasty and disgusting, roaches everywhere, cigarette stains in the carpet, the walls are all yellow from whatever, whoever was living there before smoking so much,” she said. “It was just disgusting. The stove was full of roaches and the refrigerator was broken. It was all bad. The guy was like, ‘It’s $550 a month,’ and I was like, ‘It’s perfect! I’ll take it!’ ”
Haddish and Hart’s new film Night School, a comedy about a group of misfits attempting to pass the GED exam, comes out later this year.
“I’m just like, ‘Wow. Full circle,’ ” she said. “When he sees me, he says he’s so proud of me and stuff. And he’s always giving me the best advice. And I try to listen to him. Sometimes I don’t. And then I’ll be like, ‘Dang, I should’ve listened.’ ”
Although Haddish said she would happily pay Hart back for his loan, he has repeatedly refused to take her money.
“Sometimes he gets on my nerves ’cause he tries to play the brother and tries to clown, but for the most part he’s an awesome dude,” she said. “I mean he gave me a job on Real Husbands of Hollywood, and I kept trying to give him his $300 back. He’s like, ‘I don’t want that money. You keep that money. If I need you to be in something else, you just make sure you can do it.’ ”
She added, “Then, when I got Night School and we were working on it, I tried to give him the money back again. He’s like, ‘I don’t want your money. Just know your lines and be good in this damn movie.’ ”
The rising star previously opened up to PEOPLE about the sexual harassment she endured in the early days of her career, saying that during that time, “It seemed like everybody wanted to get in my panties. It was constant defending and battling. These men will try you every single time.”
Haddish said Hart was the exception, and called him her “comedy guardian angel” for helping encourage her when she was homeless.
Night School hits theaters Sept. 28.
Culled from: People
