Comedian Tiffany Haddish is breaking her silence on the pending sexual abuse lawsuit against her and fellow comedic star Aries Spears.
“I know people have a bunch of questions. I get it. I’m right there with you,” Haddish shared on Instagram.
“Unfortunately because there is an ongoing legal case, there’s very little that I can say right now. But, 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. I really look forward to being able to share a lot more about this situation as soon as I can.”
Her response comes after a lawsuit was filed last week alleging that Haddish and Spears acted inappropriately toward plaintiffs Jane Doe, now 22, and her younger brother John Doe, now 14, while filming two comedy sketches filmed when they were children.
The clip in question is a sketch comedy skit called “The Mind of a Pedophile,” which was posted to the site Funny or Die but removed in 2018.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, John Doe “spends most of the video clad only in his underwear” while Spears looks at him longingly. The camera also zooms in on his private parts while he’s playing. In one scene, Spears massages baby oil on the child suggestively. He also has the child John playing with a train in way that suggests phallic masturbation. Finally, there’s a scene where Spears smokes a cigarette while watching the child naked in a bath.
The suit further alleges that Jane was encouraged by Spears and Haddish to mimic oral sex for a comedy skit in 2013. The plaintiff says she was forced to watch a skit of coeds “moaning and making sexual noises” as they both ate a sub sandwich “in a manner that simulated the act of fellatio.”
“I tried to mimic what they wanted me to mimic, but it still came out just super uncomfortable,” Jane told the Daily Beast, who reported on the lawsuit. “I knew when I left the booth that I didn’t complete what they wanted me to do.”
Spears has still not made any public comments on the pending lawsuit.
A previous version of this article called the sketch “Through a Pedophile’s Eyes” based on a Daily Beast report that was later corrected.