“I Love My Social Media Presence”: Tiffany Pollard on Being the Meme Queen and Her New Show (2024)

Reality television owes a lot to Tiffany “New York” Pollard. The pop culture icon, who rose to fame in the mid-2000s on shows such as Flavor of Love and its spin-off, I Love New York, set the stage for a whole genre of television that followed—one that delights in the deliberately absurd and over-the-top personas. (See today: The Real Housewives franchise, Love & Hip Hop, Too Hot to Handle, and on and on.) But let us not forget that Pollard did all of this first, bringing high entertainment (and high camp) to our small screens during a time when reality was not really what it is today.

Pollard’s contribution to pop culture lives on more than a decade after her fame’s peak. These days, you can hardly log on to the internet without coming across a Tiffany Pollard meme. There’s the GIF of her laying peacefully on a messy bed with her sunglasses on, a tranquil statue in a sea of disorder—a personal favorite. There’s Pollard smoking a cigarette with a look of existential crisis on her face, a perennial mood of 2020. There’s Pollard rubbing her temples in annoyance, another evocation of 2020. Whatever emotion you’re feeling in this new decade, Pollard is there to capture it better than words possibly can—and she knows this.

“I love my social media presence,” Pollard says. “For me to be still relevant and out there like I was in 2005, it’s glorious. I could have had 20 million followers, but social media wasn’t poppin’ back then!”

We’re speaking on the occasion of her new show, Brunch With Tiffany, which premiered on VH1 earlier this month. Given Pollard’s enduring presence on the internet, a new show seemed somewhat inevitable. But the show’s content is not centered on the predictable, fiery “New York” attitude that we’ve come to know and love. (She once told a fellow Flavor of Love contestant, “You look like a fairy princess…that resides over the pits of hell.”) Rather, it’s a mature second outing for the seasoned reality star, and one that shows a different, softer side of her.

During the Flavor of Love era, Pollard was in her early 20s and still trying to figure out her own identity; in many ways, she was playing a caricature of herself. “I came from upstate New York and was living out of my suitcase, trying to figure it out every day,” she says. In the past, she has been candid about playing up a persona for the cameras. “I don’t know if people know this about me, but I am a devout Christian,” Pollard told Buzzfeed News in 2018. “[On Flavor of Love, there were] 19 other women and the cattiness, the drama, the competition of it all—all that…would make anybody go a little bit bitchy.”

Now 38 years old, Pollard says she’s ready to use Brunch With Tiffany as a means of having more meaningful, authentic conversations. “A lot of people always tell me, ‘We didn’t know you’re so intelligent,’ ” she says. Each episode, Pollard invites a fellow star—Sheryl Lee Ralph and Bob the Drag Queen have been guests so far—to have brunch with her. “A lot of them are VH1 favorites,” she says. “I feel like the cast each had something personal going on. People really needed to elaborate on personal things in their lives and in their careers. People feel like they can trust me, like they can open up to me and talk about anything.”

Starring on the show has proven to be a new experience for Pollard: Without needing to be the loudest and craziest person in the room à la Flavor of Love, she can just be herself. It’s her show, and she calls the shots and controls the narrative. “Being back on television is so awesome. It’s cool to have the pressure off of me,” says Pollard.

“Doing brunch, where you just get to sit there and order the Champagne and all of the most expensive food on the menu while getting the tea, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.” Pollard admits that she is re-entering a reality landscape that now looks completely different—but for her, not much has changed. “I always hear from people that reality television nowadays is more scripted and feels less authentic,” she says. “But I don’t agree—some stuff you just can’t plan. Who would know better than me?”

Now that the show is airing on VH1, don’t expect this to be the last time you’ll see Pollard on TV, either. The star is currently bicoastal, living between New York and L.A., and she says she’s fielding a number of offers from Hollywood. This year? It’s only the beginning of her reality rebirth. “I definitely am booked and busy,” she says. “It’s a totally different world in L.A.,” says the woman who made her name as “New York” on Flavor of Love. “This is where the money’s at—and I’ve made my paper!”