As many of us know by now, Tiffany didn’t have the easiest childhood. Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Calif., Tiffany’s dad, Tsihaye Reda Haddish, left when she was just 3 years old. He came to the U.S. as a refugee and was deported, according to The Jerusalem Post. After that, Tiffany’s mother, Leola, remarried and gave birth to Tiffany’s two half-brothers and two half-sisters.

But in 1988, Leola got in a car accident that would forever alter her and her children’s lives. It altered Leola’s brain chemistry, leading to a schizophrenia diagnosis that caused Leola to be “quick-tempered, abusive, and violent,” Tiffany wrote in her 2017 memoir, The Last Black Unicorn. At 13 years old, Tiffany and her siblings were sent into foster care and separated because of this. At 15 years old, Tiffany and her siblings went into her maternal grandmother’s care.