Flavor of love cast3/28/2023 ![]() Most parties require several hours and some shots to reach their “breaking up fights” stage, but already at THNK1994 Pollard needs a drink and some time to recover before she tours the exhibit. These days, she says, “shit isn’t as real as it was when I invented this shit.” In the beginning, Pollard was wittier, hammier, and louder than anyone else onscreen. Jenn, Scared Famous, Famously Single, Brunch with Tiffany, The Doctors, The Next 15, Good Work, and Celebrity Big Brother. A list that includes MTV’s Say What? Karaoke, Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School, New York Goes to Hollywood, New York Goes to Work, Botched, Family Therapy With Dr. ![]() She came in second place on Flavor of Love but earned a huge following and a spin-off, I Love New York, that became a bizarre, treasured relic of aughts-era TV. Since then, Pollard estimates she’s appeared on roughly 20–30 other shows, some short-lived, others medium-lived. She also has an un-ignorable cackle - like a coquettish Muppet - that she emits whenever she’s having fun, which she generally is, more often than other cast members. She knew how to walk the line between victim and manipulator, how to work up the energy in a room, watch it explode, but still command love from those watching. Pollard was an early example of the kind of compulsively watchable reality star we now see a lot more often, a model others try to follow. The rest is history, available for streaming on Amazon Prime. “I thought he was hitting on me, so I lied and said I wasn’t.” But he persisted, Pollard relented, and, without even knowing who she was auditioning to date, tried out for Flavor of Love. “I didn’t know how, though.” She remembers “like it just happened yesterday” the day when she met her fate, in the form of a reality-TV casting director: She was walking down Hollywood Boulevard with her ex, shopping for a new purse, when some guy walked up to her and asked her if she was single. “I always prayed to be famous,” Pollard tells me later. And from the first moment she appeared on screen for a confessional in a red tube dress and black knee-high boots - and called the other women a “pack of bitches” in the most charming way possible - it was clear that the Utica, New York, native was the star. In 2006, Pollard appeared on two seasons of VH1’s Flavor of Love, a Bachelor-style dating show where a group of women competed for Flavor Flav’s love and trademark big clock. People have loved the hell out of Pollard for 12 years for exactly this: her ability to grab the attention in the room even in the middle of totally bizarre chaos. “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Tiff!” a voice calls from the crowd. ![]() Pollard turns to her mother, Sister Patterson, then to the crowd assembled at the foot of the stairs. The scuffle ends with a white flag - well, a white paper towel, which Pollard uses to dab the sweat from her face. Now, two minutes and 39 seconds later, Pollard is screaming while one of her guests, a 40ish-year-old white dude named Scott, tries to keep a party crasher named Louie Victory from following them into a small VIP section. Scott grabs Louie Victory, young black guy with a short platinum-blonde fro, by the collar of his blue velvet jacket and manages to keep a Swisher Sweet firmly between his lips as they start to wrestle. It all happens fast: Louie Victory almost falls over the railing (about four feet to the ground) the fight is busted up, Scott is removed, Louie Victory is given a seat and a strong drink. Pollard dropped her hip, cocked her head, raised her arm in a snap, and said her catchphrase: “New York in the motherfucking houuuuuse.” Then she soaked up the overjoyed YASSSSes, accepted bodega carnations from smiling, sweaty-faced fans, and made her way up the narrow steps to a small VIP area. ![]() the HBIC of reality TV - walked into the door of a THNK1994, a tiny Bedstuy gallery dedicated to lowbrow pop-culture nostalgia, where she greeted the crowd of early 20-something fans who had assembled to celebrate the opening night of an exhibit in her honor. Two minutes and 39 seconds ago, Pollard - a.k.a. STOP.” For a moment, her splayed curls and panic turns her into a black tableau vivant of Caravaggio’s Medusa, and everyone else has frozen accordingly, staring up at her, trying to process what the hell is happening. Her eyes are wide, her mouth a wailing O as she shrieks: “ NOOOOO. Tiffany Pollard’s hands are on either side of a face, pushing her ringlets back from her temples in a pose of distress.
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