Tiffany Haddish is responding to the backlash over her visit to Israel to learn about the ongoing war.
The comedian and actress, who discovered she was Jewish later in life and had her Bat Mitzvah at 40 in 2019, faced criticism after revealing her fact-finding mission to the war-torn region.
During an interview with TMZ Wednesday (February 21), Tiffany Haddish doubled down on her reasons for traveling to Israel, repeating, ” I can’t believe everything I read.”
When asked about the backlash directly, Haddish responded to reactions to her joking about looking for romance on the trip.
“I saw a headline today that I’m out here trying to find a man,” she said. “That was a little joke that I cracked. I’m out here to be informed, I want the true education. I think the best way to learn is to be present in a place and see for yourself. Don’t believe everything the media tells you because a lot of times the media only tells you half the truth.”
When asked her opinion on the “scope of the retaliation by Israel” and the deaths of “30,000 Palestinians“, Haddish replied, “Yes, I’m going over there too. I just been here for a few hours.”
She also explained that she learned a lot since arriving, before becoming emotional regarding the human suffering in the region.
“I care about both sides; I care about humanity. Human beings,” Haddish said. “I know there’s a lot of religious stuff going on, a lot of control of the land, ‘No Jews here, no this there’ whatever… that’s neither here nor there with me. It’s about the human life, human beings. Human beings, man! That’s what I care about. That’s why I’m here.”