It’s wild to think someone as funny as Tisha Campbell was once afraid of comedy. After all, she helped define two of the most iconic sitcoms in Black television history—Martin and My Wife and Kids—with her timing, charm, and unshakeable screen presence. But when it came to stand-up? That was a different beast.

“I never, ever wanted to do it, because I was so scared,” Campbell tells BET.com from a hotel room in New York City, gearing up to go on stage and do exactly what used to terrify her. “As a matter of fact, early on in my career when I was mostly doing drama, I couldn't get arrested doing comedy. So I’d sit in the back of comedy clubs and try to figure out what comedy was. All these comedians—from Damon [Wayans] to others—were like, ‘You need to try stand-up!’ I was too afraid. And one day I was like, ‘You know what? It’s now or never.’”

Now, Campbell is taking her stories and signature sass on the road, co-headlining the Dayum Gina Tour with longtime friend and comedian Finesse Mitchell. The title, of course, is a wink to the phrase Martin Lawrence’s character would famously blurt in frustrated admiration of Campbell’s role as Gina Waters on Martin—a show that cemented her as a comedy legend in the ‘90s and remains a streaming favorite on BET+.

And like many good things, the tour started by accident.

She was in D.C. supporting her friend D-Nice at a club night when the host dropped out. “[Promoters] were like, ‘Can you do a 15-minute set?’” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Huh?’ But I ended up doing it. By the time I got off stage, I had an agent. And they were like, ‘You really gotta do this.’ I’ve been loving it ever since.”

To be clear, Tisha Campbell has always had receipts. Born in Newark, she made her TV debut at six on PBS’ The Big Blue Marble and never slowed down. She brought the house down in Little Shop of Horrors, became a fan favorite on NBC’s Rags to Riches, and went toe-to-toe with Spike Lee (School Daze), Eddie Murphy (Boomerang), and Kid ‘n Play (House Party). On the small screen, she starred in hits like Martin, My Wife and Kids, Dr. Ken, and most recently in Netflix’s Uncoupled. She’s also an accomplished singer with a platinum House Party soundtrack cut and a solo album under her belt. If there’s a lane in entertainment, Campbell’s probably sped through it.

But stand-up? This is personal.

“I’m just telling stories about my life,” she says. “I think a lot of people are so used to me playing different characters, they don’t really know me—the person who’s so goofy. I talk about my family, being a single mom, my truth, all those things. I open up a lot.”

And there's plenty to unpack—from her 21-year marriage to Duane Martin, which ended in 2020, to raising two sons, and even navigating a once-contentious legal battle with Lawrence during Martin’s original run. (The two have since reconciled, and she even returned for the show’s 2022 reunion special.)

Still, this tour isn’t a reinvention—it’s a reclamation.

“It’s been fun to be able to make the choices for myself, because I never made them for me for most of my career,” she explains. “Even when I started as a kid, it was to help my family get out of their circumstances. So now I’m making these choices. I’m learning I’m braver and crazier than I knew.”

The Dayum Gina Tour spans 33 cities, and each night, Campbell says, she walks offstage with a new kind of purpose—not one driven by reinvention or even applause, but by connection.

“I can reach out and touch the people who’ve been supporting me all these years,” she says. “I’m becoming the person I always knew I was inside.”

Tisha Campbell and Finesse Mitchell’s Dayum Gina Tour is currently traveling the country. For tour dates and tickets, click here.