MTV Movie and TV Awards ratings shot up and Tiffany Haddish is the one responsible for it
The MTV Movie and TV Awards was finally able to see a massive rise in its ratings this year, and while a scheduling shift was definitely a smart move to ensure that, it cannot be denied that this year's host, Tiffany Haddish, had quite the role to play in it.
According to Nielsen live-plus-same day, the Monday-night telecast of the awards show drew 3.371 million total viewers across 10 Viacom-owned cable channels. Included in those channels were MTV and VH1 too, and in terms of ratings, they saw a massive 21 percent rise from the event's 2017 installment. Tallying the seven channels that aired the telecast this year and also in 2017, the show was up by a whopping 27 percent in total viewership as well.
Not just that; Nielsen also claimed the show to be the most social TV program of the evening, and as per MTV's international data, the show was streamed 83 million times - which is more than double the number of times last year's show was streamed.
And the woman behind it all? Tiffany Haddish.
The “Girls Trip” actress received a lot of appreciation for her turn at hosting, especially when it came to her little sketches throughout the night, on big wins like “Black Panther” and “Stranger Things.”
In her Black Panther spoof, Haddish tries to fill into the role of M’Baku from the movie, and quite in accordance with the character, challenges T'Challa to the throne. “I’m legit royal blood, Shuri!” Haddish proclaims. “In fact, I just did a 23 and Me and pooped in a tube and everything.”
Recognizing the movie's big success in the award show this year, Haddish had also referenced the Marvel film in her opening monologue for the night - with a special focus on the black community.
“It’s been a year of firsts for black people,” she said. “I’m the first black woman to host the MTV Movie Awards, Black Panther is the first African-American movie to make a billion dollars, and The Quiet Place is the first film to scare black people out of talking in movie theaters.”
The other big film of the year, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was also not spared by her. She decided to associate it with a cult favorite drama of today that few would have even considered possible.
“I’m always excited to see the Kardashians,” Haddish said in her opening monologue. “That family is basically the Star Wars franchise, OK? They make a ton of money, a new one is always popping up, and they’re ruled by a bossy overlord who sleeps in a mask and she loves black men.”
With phrases like "I knew who bit Beyonce", “You are so close to getting my face pregnant!”, and announcing that she is a unicorn that's "horny as hell", Haddish sent the crowd and the viewers back home rolling with laughter every time she took the stage. Among her other routines for the night was also her dressing up as Cardi B, performing Bodak Yellow, and explaining to the crowd how she started watching 13 Reasons Why only because she thought it was a sequel to 12 Years A Slave.
And if you're still not convinced that Haddish was the true star of the show, this is what she had to say about Stranger Things: “Everyone thinks they are so cute, but hear me out: they ride bikes in a group, Eleven beats a**es and they always dropping bodies. Where I come from that’s a straight-up gang.”