Girls Trip 2 is ‘Officially Happening.’ But Do We Need the Whole ‘Flossy Posse’ Back? [UPDATED]

Updated 2/1/2023 at 1:43 p.m. ET:

Though fans may feel some type of way about Tiffany Haddish returning for Girls Trip 2, the actress is ready to get to work. On Tuesday, while leaving The Ivy restaurant in Los Angeles, Calif. TMZ asked her about the backlash, which she seemed to be hearing about for the first time. The Card Counter actress expressed her love for her co-stars and the entire Girls Trip team.

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“I will do anything with those women,” Haddish said. “I love everybody who worked on that. We had a blast. They want to work with me, I want to work with them.”

The Night School star went on to state that she’s only worried about what she thinks of herself, and that she’s happy with who she is.

“I can’t be concerned with what people think,” she said. “I gotta be concerned with how I feel when I look in the mirror. Am I happy with what I see? Yes, ma’am. God made it, God did a good job and God knows the truth.”

While it’s true Tiffany only has to worry about Tiffany, the studio has to worry about what the audience thinks and they may have a different opinion on her inclusion in the sequel.

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After years of speculation, we’ve finally got a definitive answer on Girls Trip 2. While speaking to Variety at the Sundance Film Festival, Girls Trip writer/director/producer Tracy Oliver confirmed that the sequel is “officially happening.” She went on to reveal a pivotal location change for the follow-up. She explained that producer Will Packer “might kill me, we’re looking to set it in Ghana.”

Oliver also said that all four leads, Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish and Jada Pinkett Smith, are set to return for the new film. Apparently, the ladies could be looking to attend the Afrochella music festival. This sounds like a lot of fun and it will be truly interesting to see where the “Flossy Posse” is now. But let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the room: I don’t need to see Tiffany Haddish back for the sequel.

As previously reported by The Root, the actress found herself mired in scandal in September 2022 when she and comedian Aries Spears were accused of child sexual abuse in a lawsuit. The allegations stem from two comedy sketches they did with two minor children, named Jane Doe and John Doe in the suit. At the time they worked on the videos with Haddish and Spears they were 14 and seven respectively. According to the suit, Jane participated in a commercial parody with Haddish where “she had to eat a sandwich ‘in a manner that simulated the act of fellatio.’” In John’s case, Haddish, who was apparently a close family friend, told the children and their mother they would be shooting a sizzle reel for Nickelodeon, but the young boy ended up appearing in a video with Spears called “Through a Pedophile’s Eyes.” It eventually found its way to Funny or Die. Yeah, there’s absolutely no excuse for thinking any part of that was OK. Did she think disguising these requests under the banner of comedy would somehow make them less gross?

The suit was ultimately dropped a few weeks after it was filed, with Jane Doe releasing a statement saying, “My family and I have 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.” I’m genuinely glad that she and her brother are working to recover and move on, but that doesn’t fully absolve Haddish of responsibility.

Whether she meant to or not, she endangered children who she was entrusted to take care of. I’m willing to give a second chance on a lot of mistakes, but child endangerment is not one of them. I’m not about to sit in the theater and just laugh at her inappropriately flirting with some Ghanaian hotel clerk and pretend like nothing ever happened. And apparently Twitter agrees with me because the reaction to her possible return was not good.

Alongside a short clip of a gun-toting Denzel Washington, one message explained the chaos fans will cause as they work to get the actress removed from the film, writing, “People showing up to the studio to force them to recast Tiffany Haddish’s role in Girls Trip 2.”

Another user noted their surprise at the announcement, asking, “they’re still gonna put tiffany haddish in girls trip 2?????”

An Abbott Elementary star seems to be the leading candidate to replace Haddish in the sequel, with one user tweeting, “janelle james should replace tiffany haddish in girls trip 2 but that’s just me.”

If the studio isn’t going to replace Haddish based on the lawsuit, perhaps it can consider the money they’ll lose when people aren’t motivated to go to the theater to see this film. And maybe think about the cast and crew who probably don’t want to spend the whole production and press roll out answering questions about the scandal and dealing with the fallout of keeping her in the movie. This doesn’t seem like that difficult of a decision.

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