Tiffany Haddish Allegations Loom Over ‘Girls Trip’ Sequel Announcement

Oh no, this is bad. This is really bad. Like, this is Gross with a capital “G-sus Christ what is the world coming to?” This is right up there with the allegations against Brendon Urie and Percy Hynes. What am I talking about? Long story short: Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears were accused of child sexual abuse. The allegations, which originally surfaced in 2022, are once again making headlines following the announcement of a sequel to Girls Trip.

Okay, so what in God’s name is happening? How did this all start? Allow me to explain …

Content warning: Descriptions of children performing suggestive acts.

The allegations

According to the Washington Post, an anonymous plaintiff Jane Doe filed a lawsuit against Haddish and Spears claiming that the pair of comedians hired Doe and her younger brother to perform inappropriate acts on camera when they were children. Due to their ages at the time the incident was said to have occurred, the pair have adopted pseudonyms to protect their identities. Doe, now 22, was 14 years old at the time of the alleged video shoot, and her little brother was only seven.

The mother of Doe and her brother was friends with Haddish at the time, and the children once called her “Auntie Tiff.” According to the Daily Beast, the children’s mother and Haddish bonded over a mutual love of comedy. The pair were also going through similar struggles at the time. “We were both going through a divorce,” the mother told the Daily Beast. “Messy, messy, messy, messy divorces … We just got really, really super, super close.”

According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe attended a comedy camp in 2013 where Haddish appeared as a guest speaker. Haddish reportedly told the child that she had found “the perfect role for her” (I don’t like the sound of it, either). Jane Doe and her mother agreed to have Doe appear in the video, yet neither of them knew exactly what the shoot would involve. That was known only to Haddish and her collaborator, Aries Spears.

The lawsuit alleges that on the day of the shoot, Haddish made Doe watch a video of a a group of coeds eating a subway sandwich. The video quickly turned sexual, as the coeds began to eat the sandwich from opposite ends while moaning and performing gestures that “simulated the act of fellatio” as per the lawsuit. The lawsuit goes on to say that Haddish told Doe to “mimic what she had seen on the screen, including the noises precisely like what she heard throughout the video” while Spears watched. Doe stated that she felt “nervous and disgusted” during the incident. “I tried to mimic what they wanted me to mimic, but it still came out just super uncomfortable,” she told the Daily Beast. “I knew when I left the booth that I didn’t complete what they wanted me to do.” The lawsuit claims that Haddish paid Doe $100 and then sent her home.

To which I respond …

WHAT THAT FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!!

AND GUESS WHAT? IT GETS WORSE.

It always does, doesn’t it? The lawsuit then alleges that Haddish and Spears coerced John Doe, Jane’s younger sibling, into filming a sexually explicit “sketch” called “Through A Pedophile’s Eyes,” which SHOULD have been a MASSIVE RED FLAG to everyone on that shoot but apparently wasn’t? Like, could you imagine showing up to a shoot and on the callsheet you see “WORKING TITLE: THROUGH A PEDOPHILE’S EYES” listed? I’m surprised that the camera crew didn’t head for the hills POST HASTE.

According to the lawsuit, the children were separated during filming, with Jane left to wait on the couch downstairs while her little brother’s shoot occurred upstairs. The lawsuit claims that the seven-year-old John Doe was molested by Spears, who “lusted over him” in the video. The video casts Haddish as a mother who unknowingly leaves her child under the care of a pedophile, played by Spears. According to the lawsuit, Spears ogled John through two holes cut out in a newspaper he pretended to read while the boy was in nothing but his underwear. The camera also zooms in on the boy’s buttocks and crotch while he plays. In one scene, John plays with a train in a way that resembles phallic masturbation. In another, Spears rubs baby oil over the boy’s bare back and shoulders. Spears smokes a cigarette while the child is portrayed nude in a bathtub and Spears begins to splash water on the boy’s feet.

During the final scene, John peers through the newspaper at Spears and rubs baby oil on the shirtless adult’s shoulders. At the end of the “skit,” the final line of onscreen text reads “WATCH WHO YOU LEAVE YOUR KIDS WITH”.

APPARENTLY THAT INCLUDES YOU, ARIES SPEARS. AND YOU, TIFFANY HADDISH.

The lawsuit alleges that this nightmarish sequence of events concluded when John “called his mother crying, saying he did not want to film anymore.”

So what did the internet have to say?

What do you THINK? THE INTERNET HIT THE GODDAMN ROOF. Twitter is ABLAZE with users bashing Haddish and Spears, and expressing relief that the former was fired from the upcoming sequel to Girls Trip AS SHE DAMN WELL SHOULD BE. A few days after the court filing, Haddish appeared to express remorse in a since-deleted post on Instagram, saying, “clearly while this sketch was intended to be comedic, it wasn’t funny at all, and I deeply regret having agreed to act in it.” Aries Spears has not commented on the video.

So what happens now?

Bafflingly enough, Jane Doe herself requested that the lawsuit be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it can never be refiled. In a statement to TMZ, Doe said that her family had “known Tiffany Haddish for many years” and “we now know that she would never harm me or my brother or help anyone else do anything that could harm us. We wish Tiffany the best and are glad that we can all put this behind us.” Her statement made no mention of Aries Spears.

Doe’s motives for requesting the dismissal are unknown, but it could have been due to a number of factors. While it’s possible that Doe had a change of heart, it’s also possible that the realities of pursuing a lawsuit of this nature would be too much for the deeply traumatized siblings to bear. I don’t know which is more likely, but I sincerely hope that if Doe and her little brother are unable to find restitution, they can at least find some semblance of solace knowing that Haddish, in her own words, “lost everything” and that her career is effectively over.

(featured image: Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / FilmMagic)