Earlier this year, Tiffany Haddish accepted a plea deal that dismissed her two misdemeanor DUI charges in favor of a reckless driving conviction. She had been arrested on Nov. 24. after Beverly Hills Police responded to a call of a person, possibly slumped over the wheel, blocking a roadway. With some distance from the incident, the actress is looking back on it through a comedic lens. During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Haddish detailed the DUI that landed her in what she described as “the most beautiful police station I’ve ever been in in my life.”
“I got a call from one of my rich friends, they said they didn’t have no food because they ended up firing the chef or whatever. And I saw this as an opportunity to get into another movie,” Haddish explained. She agreed to bring some food over but admits: “I should have sent it in an Uber or sent someone else to take it there but I wanted to take it there myself because I felt like there was [an] opportunity to talk business so I went in and I did have a drink and I was very sleepy.”
Haddish also felt comforted by the fact that she was making the trip in a self-driving vehicle. “I have a Tesla and Tesla drive[s] itself. That’s the way that Tesla is set up. If you start to get drowsy or, you know, your eyes are closed for too long, your head bobbing or you’re not like moving or anything, it will pull over and park the car in such a way to get you help because it thinks that you may have had a seizure, you might have died or something like that,” Haddish explained. “I’m not sure if that’s true, but from what I read, and from my court case, that’s true.”
When Haddish’s DUI was dismissed, a spokesperson with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office stressed that while the plea agreement was not a DUI conviction, the specific vehicle code used came with an admission that it was a “wet reckless” involving intoxication. They also explained that it would qualify as a prior conviction in the sense that a subsequent DUI would be considered a repeat offense.
Haddish’s blood alcohol level was at 0.3 when the police stopped her and took her to jail. When she arrived, she was surprised at the high-quality amenities of the location. She joked that the toilet paper was made from “organic rice paper” and recalled using a call button in the cell to have an attendant bring her “the biggest maxi pad I ever seen in my whole entire life.”
“I’m gonna tell you right now, if I ever commit a crime ever in life, if I decide to commit one, I’m only doing it in Beverly Hills,” Haddish said. “I’m sorry Beverly Hills. I gotta tell him. Most beautiful police station I’ve ever been in in my life.”
