Tiffany Haddish explains why she thought she would die before turning 21

Eritrean-American comedian and actress Tiffany Haddish recently opened up about a period in her childhood when she felt she was not going to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

In a snippet from this week’s episode of the SHE MD podcast, Haddish, 44, opened up about a period where she “never” envisioned rising to fame as an entertainer and why she had that thought, PEOPLE reported.

“I didn’t even think I would make it to 21,” the I Curse You with Joy author said about her childhood. “I thought I would die before I was 21, because people were getting shot around me.”

“I had been to so many funerals. So many of my friends were getting killed. It was so much devastation around me that I just … I didn’t think I would make it,” she continued.

Despite those setbacks, Haddish said she remained optimistic. “Even as I got older and I felt like my world was being taken and pulled apart and ripped up and shredded and I was getting beat up physically, emotionally, mentally, all these things, I still was like, ‘I just want to bring joy,’” she said.

Haddish also recalled a period in her childhood when she “tried to do” everything she saw on the Star Search television show. “I wanted to be on Star Search so bad. I remember having my little church shoes, those little Mary Janes with the hard bottoms. I’d go in the kitchen, I’d be tap dancing,” the Haunted Mansion star said.

Haddish said she even went to the extent of performing for neighborhood kids she had invited to “come over” and watch her sing and dance. “I would make up these songs and sing and dance for them,” she recalled.

“Did I imagine that I would be an entertainer? Yes. Did I imagine that it would be on this scale? No.”